Easily the darkest movie of director Sam Peckinpah's career, and one of the bleakest films ever made, period, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is, depending on who you read, either a bizarre cult masterpiece or a bizarre piece of trash. Trashed by critics and audience upon its release in the summer of 1974, the pendulum has, in recent times, swung in its favor because people are willing to look much closer at it.
Warren Oates, one of the great character actors of all times, here given a starring role by his good friend Peckinpah, is compulsive as a down-and-out piano player in a Mexico City dive given the chance to "score" by delivering the head (and ONLY the head) of a Mexican gigolo who played around with the daughter (Janine Maldonado) of his former employer (Emilio Fernandez). Although he is offered $10,000 for the reward for Garcia's noggin by a group of Americans working for Fernandez, the actual bounty is one hundred times that. Since Oates knows from his girlfriend (Isela Vega) that "Big Al" died in a car crash exacerbated by too much Mexican booze, he thinks the retrieval of the head will be easy, fast, and a lucrative "way out. That, however, turns out not to be the case by any means, and it leads him into a nightmare from which he cannot get out of.
Few other films have ever mixed so many different genres into one, and ALFREDO GARCIA mixes in elements of Mexican melodrama; the western; the gangster/crime genre; romantic tragedy; vengeance; black comedy; and even horror. Less violent than his two big masterpieces (THE WILD BUNCH; STRAW DOGS), ALFREDO GARCIA nevertheless still has its trademark Peckinpah approach to violence, though it is done in a deliberately cold-blooded and calculated way. It also features a tremendous score by Peckinpah favorite Jerry Fielding that combines traditional and classical Mexican music elements with the more brooding influences that he used for STRAW DOGS. Its warped combination of genres will certainly not satisfy everyone, but with Peckinpah, that's just the way things go. But for those who are game, ALFREDO GARCIA is worth the risk.
Warren Oates, one of the great character actors of all times, here given a starring role by his good friend Peckinpah, is compulsive as a down-and-out piano player in a Mexico City dive given the chance to "score" by delivering the head (and ONLY the head) of a Mexican gigolo who played around with the daughter (Janine Maldonado) of his former employer (Emilio Fernandez). Although he is offered $10,000 for the reward for Garcia's noggin by a group of Americans working for Fernandez, the actual bounty is one hundred times that. Since Oates knows from his girlfriend (Isela Vega) that "Big Al" died in a car crash exacerbated by too much Mexican booze, he thinks the retrieval of the head will be easy, fast, and a lucrative "way out. That, however, turns out not to be the case by any means, and it leads him into a nightmare from which he cannot get out of.
Few other films have ever mixed so many different genres into one, and ALFREDO GARCIA mixes in elements of Mexican melodrama; the western; the gangster/crime genre; romantic tragedy; vengeance; black comedy; and even horror. Less violent than his two big masterpieces (THE WILD BUNCH; STRAW DOGS), ALFREDO GARCIA nevertheless still has its trademark Peckinpah approach to violence, though it is done in a deliberately cold-blooded and calculated way. It also features a tremendous score by Peckinpah favorite Jerry Fielding that combines traditional and classical Mexican music elements with the more brooding influences that he used for STRAW DOGS. Its warped combination of genres will certainly not satisfy everyone, but with Peckinpah, that's just the way things go. But for those who are game, ALFREDO GARCIA is worth the risk.