Leonard Maltin On THE WILD BUNCH

[BasinBictory]

I imagine that film audiences in 1969 were as shocked by the level of violence in The Wild Bunch as film audiences a generation later would be by Saving Private Ryan. Peckinpah was just a brilliant choreographer of the brutal and base. His juxtapositions of innocence and violence are unrivaled in film today.

[jporcel100]

Film critics panned the film when it opened? Fucking pussies.

[BrassPie]

@jporcel100

Many did. There were a couple that were, pardon me, Blown Away by the movie. Roger Ebert was one of the few critics that liked it.

[TotallyTank]

my grandma use to watch alot of westerns, but when i saw this. my eyes where glued to the TV. I love this movie....

[SatenzaofRT]

Maltin's off. This is a masterpiece that is about violence. The Bunch pass on but their legacy lives on at the end of the picture, which is the beautiful and twisted irony of it. This film is heads and tails better than the majority of its peers, which include Bonny and Clyde and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because The Wild Bunch doesn't give you romantically fictitious outlaw heroes - like those films - but offers you brutal, violent, complex, and real human beings.

[TypicalJAFO]

Maltin has it 100% right about Peckinpah and his use of violence. The Wild Bunch is violent, but there's not a single scene in the film that is gratuitous or thrown in there just for cheap shock value. It's all as integral to the story as every line of dialogue or bit of soundtrack music.

[TheBlueyedblond]

@fran9860 TOO BAD YOUR MOTHER DIDN'T HAVE A MISCARRIAGE.

[Wolfsky9]

Hands-Down, the best movie ever made. Ever. A Man's movie. Wolfsky9

[Dukeoftruth]

I remember when i saw this movie in 1972 as a 10-year-old kid - it blew me away.

I can attest to the blood and gore and pain of getting shot cause i experienced that in war later on.

[ftlshome1]

the wild bunch is a piece of hollywood history, hands down.

[6061peb]

Although in a different genre this film was choreographed and played just as brilliantly and precisely as Swan Lake. For those of us who were Army property in 1969, this film spoke volumes about where our country was and where it had been. Peckinpah knew how to turn violence into art, and here he produced a masterpiece.

[A01002401]

The Wild Bunch is just as jarring and hard-hitting as it was in '69. That's what makes it great.

[chopperpilot5]

i loooooove sam peckinpah

[ftlshome1]

@chopperpilot5 i miss his directing so much, the only other director who seems to have a hint of his talent is brian depalma

[shepliam]

@ftlshome1

I miss BillyWilder, Huston,Marvin, ( I did a small role in his penultimate movie) Mitchum

[thatmovieguy777]

Sam stop peckin at my pah

[DocGor]

@thatmovieguy777

LOL!!