Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Sam Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch' is a masterpiece western. Not the best ever made, but close. So don't think I don't like this movie because I love it. However, since Mexicans are its villains, perhaps you'd be interested to read an opinion from this side of the border. The Mexico of 'The Wild Bunch' looks more like a metaphor than a real place. It is both Heaven and Hell; the theatre where the bunch will find Death but also Redemption. Accordingly, every Mexican depicted in the picture is either a saint or a monster (no middle ground here, except for the Mexican member of the Bunch, who is aptly named "Angel", although a fallen one). This serves the story splendidly, for it's meant to be an epic ballad and not a travelogue, but it does jolt the Mexican viewer because the "good Mexico" is portrayed so idyllic it's unreal, while the "bad Mexico" is very, very accurate; in fact, no American movie has captured the look, sound, feel, texture and carnage of the Mexican Revolution as this one has (even if the grandiose final scene, where the Bunch kills hundreds of heavily armed soldiers all by themselves and none of the four falls down even when riddled by bullets, defies all logic!). Perhaps that's why it was banned in Mexico back when it was released in 1969. Funny, for it was filmed in Mexico as well. The Texas bordertown you see at the begining of the story is actually Parras, Coahuila, and many of its citizens acted as extras in the movie: white ones as "Texans", brown ones as -what else?- Mexicans! Don Raúl Madero, brother of Francisco I. Madero, the man who started the Mexican Revolution, appears ...as a Texan! Even the two German officers are Mexican! So, as you can see, we Mexicans come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and hardly fit these two tiresome "noble peasant"-"greaser bandito" stereotypes American movies seem so comfortable with! I hope some day Hollywood realizes this and "walk the extra mile" to portray us for what we are: a very complex and diverse society. Neither saints, nor monsters, and certainly not mere bowling pins! P.S.: Many great Mexican directors, all personal friends of Peckinpah, appear in the film. Emilio "Indio" Fernández (Mapache) and Chano Urueta (Angel's grandfather) were the best of our cinema's Golden Age. Fernando Wagner (German officer) was also a competent theatre director, and Alfonso Arau (Herrera) is best known for his international hit 'Like Water for Chocolate'. Jorge Russek (Zamorra) was an outstanding photographer for National Geographic, and Sonia Amelio (Teresa) is a world-aclaimmed dancer (she was even awarded with an "Order of Lenin" back in the Soviet Union). And just for the record, the word "Mapache" ("racoon") stands for "coward thief". No Mexican general, no matter how corrupt, would use, I believe, such a nickname! And since Mapache is "a killer working for Huerta", the action takes place in 1913, not 1916 (Huerta was ousted in early 1914).