Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Reviews

When El Jefe (Fernandez), the head of a prominent Mexican family, learns the identity of the bounder responsible for his daughter's pregnancy, he offers a million dollars to the man who can bring him the head of the culprit, Alfredo Garcia. Two homosexual hit men (Young and Webber) working for Jefe enlist the aid of Bennie (Oates), a sleazy but good-natured bar owner, who convinces the pair that he can find Garcia. Learning from his hooker girlfriend Elita (Vega) that her former client Garcia is already dead, she and Bennie travel to the cemetery where Garcia is supposedly buried to cut off the corpse's head. Bennie successfully kills two motorcycle rapists along the way, but a rival Mexican gang appears and kills Elita, knocks Bennie out and steals the head. In a bloody confrontation Bennie massacres his rivals and then turns on his two gay partners and wipes them out too. All that remains is to turn in the prized head, though Bennie's final encounter with El Jefe also goes bloodily awry. One of the cinema's more perversely intriguing experiences, the film is either appreciated as a bizarre minor classic or denounced as a piece of trash. In the only film over which the director says he had complete control, Peckinpah creates a haunting vision of a loser's quest for love and meaning in a harsh, brutal world. Although his "philosophy" and methods do not appeal to everyone and are certainly open to criticism, Peckinpah attempts to use explicit violence as a means for exploring the brutality he sees as inherent in all men. A nihilistic depiction of an existential quest, the film benefits immeasurably from the presence of Oates in the leading role of a man driven obsessively in suicidal pursuit of self-respect and importance. The macabre scenes in the car where Bennie converses with the head as flies buzz around it are funny and telling. BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA does have some sloppy photography, a few unintentionally humorous scenes, and an excess of Peckinpah's signature slow-motion violence, but it stands as one of Peckinpah's more daring films.