Apportez-moi la tête d'Alfredo Garcia

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is Sam Peckinpah's most intimate and underrated film. I can think of few other films of this caliber that are as neglected or unsung.

A bizarre, sleazy film that has Peckinpah's signature trademarks - his romance with John Huston's TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, loners, Mexico at it's grittiest, slow-motion violence.

When I saw it the first few times, the film seemed to wander aimlessly at various stretches and Peckinpah's direction felt tired to me. Even though Peckinpah can still lift you two inches off the ground with his action sequences, it doesn't have the kinetic impulse running thru it like THE WILD BUNCH, STRAW DOGS, THE GETAWAY or CROSS OF IRON.

Knowing now what I do about his career, I suspect the tiredness was authentic, due to his battles with studio executives and a self- destructive life. This knowledge and the ensuing years of experiencing the picture, have taken on added meaning and enriched it for me. Bennie the down and out piano player, memorably played by Peckinpah's Bogart, Warren Oates, is a wonderful alter ego for the director.

Starring Oates and Isela Vega and a strong supporting cast which includes Gig Young, Robert Webber and Emilio Fernandez. The excellent score is by Peckinpah's best composer, Jerry Fielding.

It may take several viewings but sit back and relish the sad poetry of an authentic film artist, Sam Peckinpah.

Watching this unforgettable near masterpiece for the first time it's impossible to understand why it isn't regarded as one of the greatest movies of the 70s - a decade that produced an astonishing amount of classics. How Maltin can dismiss it with the throwaway comment "sub-par bloodbath" defies belief! Almost everything about this movie is perfect, but the cornerstone is Warren Oates performance, perhaps his greatest. Rarely do you see such a completely engrossing, believable portrayal of a man who has lost EVERYTHING, who knows he cannot win, but also knows that he must keep going to the very end. Once seen, never forgotten may seem like a trite comment, but in this case it says it all. You will NEVER forget this movie!

Sam Peckinpah's hallucinatory bloodbath was considered career suicide when released in 1974; today, this scuzzy, squirrelly road movie looks less like self-parody than self-autopsy. As such, it has aged better than some of Peckinpah's more "reputable" movies. Like John Cassavetes' THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE and Brian DePalma's BLOW OUT, it's a thinly veiled allegory about the muck a filmmaker will wade through to get his movies made. Peckinpah's stand-in is Warren Oates, an actor who always brought a rotgut reek of authenticity to his roles; here, he's a washed-up pianist who stands to score a bundle if he completes one simple task--fetching the severed head of the yutz who impregnated a Mexican warlord's daughter. When Oates isn't defending his not-unwilling girlfriend (Isela Vega) from rapists Kris Kristofferson and Donnie Fritts (!), he's carrying on a boozy, uh, tête-à-tête with the brown-bagged head on an endless drive down Mexico way. But Oates isn't the villain--that distinction is reserved for the effete suits (the slimy duo of Gig Young and Robert Webber) on his tail. Oates is just a guy trying to maintain enough of his integrity to see a dirty job through: He's one of those screw-you Peckinpah heroes who completes his assignment just so he can wage war on his bosses. The movie has such a gritty, oozing, flyblown feel you could swear it was shot on No-Pest Strips instead of celluloid, and as Oates bears down on oblivion it slows to a druggy crawl: Each cut is like a dying man's blink. No matter-in its sick, ornery way, this is one of the director's most personal movies, and worthy of far better than its laughingstock status.

El Jefe is outraged to find that his daughter has fallen pregnant to a man who has upped and gone, after learning the identity of the rascal (Alfredo Garcia), he offers one million dollars to anyone who can bring him the head of the Lothario running man. On the trail are hit men Quill & Sappensly, Bennie & his prostitute girlfriend Elita, and some other Mexican bandit types, all of them are on a collision course that will bring far more than they all bargained for.

This was the one film where director Sam Peckinpah felt he had the most control, the one where we apparently get his own cut and not some chopped up piece of work from interfering executives. Viewing it now many years after its release it stands up well as a testament to the work of a great director. On the surface it looks trashy, we have homosexual hit men, grave robbing, potential rape, murders abound, prostitution, lower than the low characters, in short the film is awash with Peckinpah traits. Yet it would be a disservice to even think this film isn't rich in thematic texture, for the journey that Bennie that our main protagonist takes is one of meaning. He is a loser, but we find him on this quest to find not only fortune, but respect and love. It's a bloody trail for sure, but it has much depth and no little Peckinpah humour to push the film to the bloody but triumphant finale. Warren Oates is rewarded by Peckinpah for years of sterling work for him by getting the lead role of Bennie, and he grasps it with both hands to turn in a wonderful performance that splits sadness and vibrancy with deft of ease.

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia has a harsh quality about it, be it the violence, or be it the sadness of the characters, but what isn't in doubt to me is that it's harshness is cloaked in Peckinpah splendour. 9/10

This dark and brutal film involves Benny, an American piano player in Mexico (played by Warren Oates) who gets involved with bounty hunters searching for the head of Alfredo Garcia. The head is worth one million dollars, because Garcia got the daughter of a very wealthy and powerful man, pregnant.

The film features plenty of Sam Peckinpah's trademark slow-motion violence in some very well-staged action set pieces. The cast (particularly Oates and Isle Vega, as his Mexican girlfriend) are good, and the film conjures up a powerful atmosphere of despair and casual cruelty and violence.

The film , however, features moments of genuine tenderness between Oates and Vega. Oates plays Benny as a man on the edge. Basically decent but forced to do some pretty horrible things to survive.

Reviled by critics on it's first release, this film will prompt some strong reactions in viewers. While not one of Peckinpah's best films, his enormous talent is still visible throughout this film.