Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, Sam Peckinpah)

Three films into his oeuvre, three tries for this particular flick (once in a theater!) and I’m thinking I don’t care much for Peckinpah. (No, not even The Wild Bunch.) Something about his mise-en-scene – unadorned and unpretentious, yes, but in an in-your-face, holier-than-thou kind of way. Sam Fuller’s kinda the same, but he’s saved by the pulpy hysteria that infuses his films and performances; Peckinpah’s like the guy who wrote to the Seattle Weekly to complain about the article about hamburger joints; aren’t there any places, he asked, that served, you know, a real burger, just meat and a bun, with none of them fancy toppings or sauces? So combine that with a rather trite revenge-and-redemption tale, and yeah, I’m pretty close to bailing. Luckily, I haven’t seen a Peckinpah with bad performances, and this one’s no exception. Oates exudes a sleazy charm, and Isela Vega is wonderful as his lover; she’s subtle and earthy and radiates genuine warmth (something usually lacking, intentionally I imagine, in Peckinpah films). I’m just embarrassed that it took me three tries to notice.