Pancho Villa

As the blurb puts it - a story so improbable.....it must be true.... Set during the Mexican revolution of 1914 its the story of revolutionary hero Pancho Villa and his rather shrewd manipulation of the media - the Mutual Film Company led by the ever marvellous Jim Broadbent are contacted by Villa and offered to film the struggle.Star director DW Griffiths thinks its a great idea and Broadbent's nephew Frank Thayer(Eion Bailey) is dispatched south of the border with a bag containing $25 000 in gold as payment.Villa(Antonio Banderas) soon has them filming during actual battles and inspiring Frank with his dreams of a free Mexico. They return with the film but its fairly amateurish and gets laughed off screen - Frank somehow persuades his uncle to part with even more money and this time use actors like Raoul Walsh to play Villa and add some artistic licence to proceedings. There follows a very funny scene where Boradbent gets Villa to agree to only fight during the day(when they can film) and if they miss any battles to re-enact them for the cameras - Villa is appalled at the liberties taken with his lifes story but Frank explains its what the audience wants to see and will help his cause no end - something he needs as William Randolph Hearst's press empire is starting a campaign to get the US to invade Mexico to protect America's lifeblood - Oil.

Its a great little movie - made by HBO its a TV movie but Bruce Beresford directs as if its for the big screen - epic adventure,lavish battles and romance all intermingle to great effect - Banderas is excellent as Villa - a bit of a ham who is far more savvy than he lets on - the scene where he plays himself as the aged El Presidente is priceless - it doesn't shy away from the cruelties of both sides either - in fact this cruelty is what finally drives the friendship between Frank and Villa apart - although the way its used in the final film is a more than ironic touch. Fine support from Broadbent and Alan Arkin as a machine-gunning Brooklyn Jew add to the rounded cast and its picked up a really good reputation on DVD and its easy to see why......

I did not expect the premise of the movie to work but it did. This story line and the wonderful way it was developed and portrayed on screen is so much missing in the fare presented by the major studios any more. I had to put my book down! Antonio Banderas so thoroughly submerges himself into the character that after awhile he BECAME Pancho Villa. He made Pancho Villa at once hero and villain; resolute and uncertain; stoic and tender. Best of all, there was no attempt to wrap the feature up in a tidy bow at the end.

I have my TIVO permanently locked on HBO.

I am curious about the original film - The Life of General Villa (1914) - in which IMDB shows only two performers, Pancho Villa and Raoul Walsh.

Every hero is guilty of some atrocities, and Pancho Villa was no exception. Antonio Banderas delivers a convincing performance as a complicated man who had the brilliance to use the majesty of his own personality to help finance a peasant revolution in Mexico.

As docudramas go, this one is very well balanced ... it reveals the darker side of a legend, the people who tried to manipulate him, and the people he manipulated. Although the original film, the making of which is the heart of this story, has been lost to the ages, it is nonetheless a moving story.

How much is history and how much is Hollywood? Who can say? All I know is that I was more impressed than I expected to be, and more than just being entertained and educated, I was given a lot of food for thought. I sincerely hope that a Spanish language version of this will be available so that the people of Mexico can learn a different version of his story than the one that is in the books in their schools.

This was two hours of my life that I'm glad I spent in front of the screen, and I thank everyone involved for the experience. It is not the best movie I've seen this year, nor will it ever be on my Top Ten list, but it *IS* a very good example of what cinema *SHOULD* be, and all too often is not ... a thought provoking drama that tells a slightly different story than the one we thought we knew.

I don't know how historically accurate this film is, although I know the basic plot is correct. This was an entertaining look at Villa's Hollywood escapade, and Banderas' performance is, as usual, believable, funny, horrifying, likable, and despicable. Sometimes all within just a few minutes.

Highly recommended to film history buffs and Antonio Banderas fans!

Pancho Villa is a Mexican general who makes a deal with a movie studio where he will get $25,000 in gold, in exchange for the rights to film his battles. This is quite an absurd idea, especially as it leads to certain battles being 'made to measure' for the camera, and it becomes even more absurd when you realize that this is actually a true story. Yes, that's right; And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself is actually a film about the making of another film from 1914, known as 'The Life of General Villa'. The film is a little like Shadow of the Vampire, in that it depicts the making of an old film, using today's actors to play the people involved in the making of the old film. This film was made for American TV, and to me this seems a great injustice and a commentary on what the American film industry thinks of it's audience. Like 1995's Citizen X, the only reason that I can think of as to why this wasn't given a cinema release is that it would be lost on it's potential audience.

The film features a number of familiar faces. People that you often see in films, but don't know their names. Here we have the excellent Alan Arkin, who's one of my favourite 'smaller' stars without a doubt, Jim Broadbent, Eion Bailey and Anthony Head from the rubbish 'Buffy' program also makes an appearance. The real acting plaudits, however, go to Antonio Banderas for his complete embodiment of the title character. I've heard a number of people say bad things about Antonio in this movie, but I have no idea why; here he gives what is probably the best performance of his career. In fact, he is so good that after a while you forget that you're watching an actor and it actually seems like Pancho Villa really is starring as himself. This does the movie no end of favours on the reality front as it continually switches between the movie that they're making and the reality of Pancho Villa's revolution. This movie does an excellent job of catching an authentic Mexican atmosphere, and this is made even finer by way of an excellent, subtle, score.

The battles in the film are excellently staged, and also quite violent and bloody; which is always nice to see. That came as something of a surprise to me as, with this being a TV movie, I wasn't expecting the battles to be particularly well done. The message that this film has seems to be that people can be made to believe anything. As one character professes at one point in the film, "the lens is mightier than the sword", and through the way that the film shows the difference between what the film that the characters are making shows and what the truth is; this message comes across loud and clear.

Please don't miss this movie because it is cursed with '(TV)' after it's title; as although it isn't a masterpiece, it most definitely is well worth seeing.