Welcome to the artsy western. Think The Thin Red Line or some other bit of art house douchery from Malick crossed some piece of shit redneck thing John Wayne was in. Basically, the worst qualities and stereotypes of the red and blue states, mixed together.
Plot summary (with spoilers): We start out decently enough, with a bunch of children gleefully watching hundreds of red ants overpower and devour a scorpion. It's 1913, and that was probably the best entertainment back then.
Pike Bishop leads his men into a railroad office. Their plan is to hold it up, and steal all the silver. Inside, they bust out the guns and make quick work of scooping up the bags of coins. What they don't know is that there are a team of bounty hunters on the roof across the street, waiting for them to exit with the silver, and then they'll start shooting. Pike's buddy and right hand man (and future masturbating bear) Dutch notices one of them peaking out from behind a ledge. He warns Pike. They decide to push one of the railroad employees out of the building, and hopefully draw fire from the men on the roof, then shoot their way out. Classy.
The shootout begins. Townspeople who have been casually strolling down the road are getting shot left and right. Several members of Pike's gang get taken out, as do some men on the roof. The shootout goes on for awhile, and is pretty well staged and choreographed. One man gets shot while riding his horse, and does this crazy flip off of it onto the dirt. Well done, stuntman! There are lots of shots of children covering their ears and women crying, and it's effective but only because I don't yet know that the whole damn movie is this shit.
Eventually, Pike and about half of his original crew escape. Turns out the men on the roof were bounty hunters, hired by the railroad. They're being led by Deke Thornton, a former partner of Pike's who was caught awhile back. In order to stay out of jail, he must lead the bounty hunters and capture or kill Pike and his gang.
Pike and said gang meet up at the meeting place and decide to split up their bounty. Besides Pike and Dutch, there are two brothers named Lyle and Tector, a Mexican named Angel, and an old man named Freddy. Freddy is the guy from Westerns who is that old prospector guy with the long white beard and the high voice who calls people "idjits". They open their bags of silver and it turns out that there are just useless washers inside. They're super pissed at first and yell at each other. They yell at each other alot in this damn movie. Ernest Borgnine and Bill Holden pretty much have one mode, and that's yelly. This was going to be their Last Job, you see, before they retired in Mexico. Now, they'll have to do another Last Job. What is it with movie thieves, and their lazy work ethic?
So, they head down to Mexico to hide out in Angel's hometown. But the revolution has occurred in Mexico, and Angel's old town is being run by an evil generalisimo, named Mapache, who drinks wine and whores around a lot. Pike and the gang have no issues with this, and do a lot of drinking and whoring themselves. Also a lot of endless talking. And I bet you're wondering if there are any douchey artistic shots in this part, like an extreme closeup of a woman breastfeeding her baby, or a horse surrounded by flies? The answer is yes. Yes there are.
They're having lunch in the town, and Angel sees the generalisimo making out with a woman who Angel used to date. Angel shoots the woman dead. Mapache's men all pull out their guns and surround Pike and his men. They swear that Angel wasn't trying to kill Mapache but just the whore. That's totally okay with everyone, so the weapons are withdrawn. Remember these are the people we're supposed to like. This Ocean's 11 Rat Pack gone sour. Mapache likes Pike's moxie, so he asks him if he's interested in doing one Last Job for 10,000 dollars. The plan is to rob a US government train that will be passing through with a ton of rifles. Mapache wants the rifles to use to fight back the natives, who are planning a revolt. Pike and the others are down with this plan. Everyone but Angel, that is. Later, he complains bitterly to Pike and Dutch that Mapache will use the weapons to kill Angel's family and friends, who are fighting the good fight against the gereralisimo and his men. Dutch responds that if they don't do it, someone else will and Mapache will have the guns anyway. This is a horrible argument that horrible people use to justify any crime they want. A better argument would've been to tell Angel that he's a hypocritical piece of shit who just murdered a woman because she wouldn't date him anymore. I mean, seriously. Angel puts his foot down and refuses to join the others. Pike offers a compromise. They're to steal 16 crates of rifles from the train, and they'll give one to Angel to give to his rebel friends. Angel finds this compromise acceptable.
Then there's about a half an hour of endless farting around, with artistic shots of the Mexican desert wasteland, lots and lots of closeups of various extras looking authentic, and Bill and Ernest shouting every other line like R Lee Ermey for no goddamn reason.
Finally, it's time to rob the train. The next twenty minutes or so are as fun and engaging as the first twenty. My god, this movie has turned me into a brainless action junkie. What's next, a Bond movie?
Turns out, the train they're going to rob has as its passengers not only Deke and the bounty hunters, but a pack of marshals or sheriffs or whatever as well. Pike and the gang quietly put their guns on the conductor and a couple marshalls. The weapons are on the first car, so they attempt to quietly disengage it from the rest of the train and then ride off. Deke sits with his bounty hunters, only one car back from the rifles. He's suspicious of the noises up ahead.
The men manage to unhook the first car, and then quickly all jump on and drive down the track. Deke pokes his head out the window and sees him. Suddenly, he and the other bounty hunters and the marshals all spill out of the train and jump on their horses that were also on the train and begin a hot pursuit.
The guys are far enough ahead to stop the train at a predetermined point and load the rifles onto a covered wagon they had waiting. The weaponry also includes a rather large machine gun on a tripod. They all get in the wagon and whip the horses, and by now Deke and the others are right behind them. They cross a bridge that they had rigged with explosives. The bridge partially collapses under the weight of the bridge and the wheel gets stuck. Freddy unfortunately had already lit the fuse. Dutch and the brothers push with all their might while Pike and Angel try to hold off Deke and his men. Finally, they free the wheel and ride off. Deke and the bounty hunters chase them...and the bridge blows while they're crossing it. Men and horses alike fall into the river in artistic slo-mo. I kid, it actually looks pretty awesome.
Pike and the others ride on, but not before Pike looks all sad and conflicted about possibly killing his old partner. Angel's rebel's meet up with the Bunch and take their crate of rifles.
Then later, Machape's men show up, demanding the rest. There's a tense moment when Pike thinks they'll all be killed and Machape will back out of his end of the bargain, so he threatens to blow up the wagon with the weapons. Machape's men back down and they agree to make the trade tomorrow. Really? Can't do it right now? Um...okay.
That night, Pike tells Dutch that he is in fact responsible for Deke getting caught, because he got sloppy one night and accidentally led the sheriff to them or something. Pike got away, but Deke was shot in the shoulder and arrested. He feels guilty blah blah blah.
The next day, Pike shows up at Machape's, and says he'll give them directions to find two of the cases of rifles for 1,000 dollars. Then after he returns back safely to the others, another man will come and give them directions to two more cases for another grand, and so on until the exchange is complete. They also offer the machine gun as a bonus. They do this without a hitch, until on the last exchange, both Dutch and Angel approach the men, take their last thousand dollars, and Machape asks Dutch how many cases were taken from the train. Dutch says 16, but one got lost and fell off the wagon while they were escaping. Machape says that's a lie, and he knows Angel stole it. The mother of the woman Angel killed came to him last night and told him so. Machape tells Dutch he can go, but Angel stays. Dutch reluctantly rides away.
Dutch tells Pike and the others what happened. They decide to try to buy Angel back. Freddy says to hell with all that and leaves with his share. The other four go back to Machape and offer to buy Angel back for 1,000. They see that Angel is currently being dragged around by a horse, while children throw rotten fruit and firecrackers at him and everyone applauds. Machape says no deal, and he wouldn't be much use to them now, anyways. Pike says he insists. Machape tells his men to bring Angel over. Angel is bloody and can barely stand. "Levanta, Angel. Estas libre", Machape says, cutting his ropes. Then he slits Angel's throat. Dutch and Pike shoot Machape dead. There's a stunned and pretty cool moment where everybody stares at everyone else, too shocked to move. Then, a firefight breaks out. It goes on for awhile, and would be cool except by now this movie is dead to me. The upshot it, Pike, Dutch and the brothers put up a helluva fight, especially after Pike commanders the machine gun, but eventually are all killed, though they took out about a hundred or so "bad" guys. Badder guys, let's say.
After this, Deke and the bounty hunters show up. The bounty hunters giggle and start looting the bodies, while Deke looks all pensive and conflicted and Stares Meaningfully at Pike's dead body. Then Freddy shows up with some of Angel's rebels, and asks Deke to join them in fighting the good fight against the federales. Yeah, I don't know. Deke of course goes with them and then there's an insanely shitty ending montage where he see the smiling, laughing slo-mo faces of The Wild Bunch, one at a time, in earlier clips from the movie. Bleh. Credits. Thank God.
Review: I pretty much said it all, already. Boring. Overwrought. Pretentious. Melodramatic. Overacting. And normally I like Ernest Borgnine, who was awesome in The Poseidon Adventure. (I say this even though he explicitly has stated his hatred of Brokeback Mountain and the gays in general. He's 92, I'll give him a pass). There were a few great scenes that keep this from being a total loss, but mostly I'm less than impressed.
Stars: One and a half out of five.
Next, "Modern Times" and then either "Titanic" or "All The President's Men".
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