Brief Thoughts on Sam Peckinpah's 'The Wild Bunch'

I think everything that needs to be said about Sam Peckinpah's 1969 western The Wild Bunch has already been said by critics smarter than I am. That being said, I did have the good fortune to watch the director's cut of the film today and had a few remarks.

I. There were rumors recently that Will Smith was in talks to do a remake of The Wild Bunch. I checked IMDB today and saw that the potential remake is not included on Smith's upcoming list of projects. Thank goodness. I'd assume that if the film ever did get remade with Smith, he'd be cast in the lead role of Pike Bishop. William Holden played Bishop, and his soulful performance is possibly the star's best work. Holden played an aging cowboy in the film, and throughout the movie he looks ill, uncomfortable, and jaundiced. It's the type of performance that the pampered and healthy-looking Smith couldn't pull off today. The truth is that today's Hollywood doesn't have a Holden. Doesn't come close to having one. Our movie stars look they spend most of their time at the gym, health food restaurants, and day spas.

II. Only seven years passed between Edmond O'Brien acted as Mr. Peabody in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in 1962 and then played old Sykes in The Wild Bunch, and yet O'Brien looks over a decade older in the later picture. Maybe he had aged quickly like Holden, or maybe it was just a combination of Liberty Valance being shot in black and white while Wild Bunch is in color and that feral beard O'Brien sports as Sykes.

III. While The Wild Bunch deserves to be regarded as the work of art that it is for its remarkable cast (in addition to Holden and O'Brien, there's Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and Warren Oates), complex sense of morality, and visual artistry (the groundbreaking, squib-heavy final thirteen minutes belong in an art gallery), I personally prefer Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) because I think its slightly shorter duration and faintly less linear structure both add a remarkable enigmatic quality to the movie.