Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
There can be little debate amongst movie buffs that two of the greatest mavericks in the history of cinema were director Sam Peckinpah and actor Warren Oates. Peckinpah was a notoriously hard driving individual who was not above physically assaulting either movie producers or studio executives, drank gallons of whiskey and vodka on a weekly basis and was in constant turmoil over the final cuts of nearly all of his films despite the fact that a great many of them are now considered indisputable classics today. Oates is another story, a literal wild man of a performer whom despite his short stature, gave one ferocious powerhouse performance after another (usually in supporting roles), sometimes while allegedly under what many say was the influence of cocaine and despite an early death (much like Peckinpah) has in recent years become a rediscovered iconic figure, one with a large fan following who look up to him as having an image that constitutes what a true “man’s man” is all about. These two worked together on a handful of films (including The Wild Bunch) but perhaps their most famous direct collaboration occurred with this 1974 classic which gave Oates one of his few lead roles and is said to be the only film that Peckinpah had full control on as well as having final cut. Blasted by most critics at the time of its release (except surprisingly, Roger Ebert), the film has only managed to grow in stature in terms of its reputation (and concurrently with Oates’ own revival of appreciation) as the years have gone by. In some ways a “personal” project for its director (despite the many brutal shooting deaths) all the way up to Oates reportedly fashioning his character’s look and attitude directly from Peckinpah himself on set (including borrowing a pair of his trademark sunglasses) while giving an anguished performance for the ages as someone who looks pure evil in the eye (while not exactly being a saint himself) and decides if nothing else to at least go down fighting. The movie opens with a (very) pretty, young, pregnant Mexican girl peacefully dipping her feet in the water when she is summoned by a couple of thugs telling her that her fearsome father wants to see her, now. The father (Emilio Fernandez) is never directly identified as being specifically either a crime boss or a drug lord, but he is definitely a filthy rich guy who is so wealthy that he even has his own personal church on his estate along with his own priest. When his daughter is brought before him (even in front of the priest!), he calmly asks her who the father of the baby is. When she beautifully and defiantly turns her chin up at him, he cruelly orders his men to strip her, beat her and finally break her arm (good thing he also has an on site doctor on the premises) before she agonizingly screams out his name: Alfredo Garcia, a known womanizer who apparently is a former employee of her father’s. The evil old bastard wastes little time putting out his mandate (the title of the film), promising $1 million dollars in cash to the first one to do so which sends a number of henchmen scurrying from the estate in order to put the word out, hoping that every two bit hit man and bounty hunter in Mexico will be hunting poor Alfredo down and then taking his head. But it’s obvious that there’s one high end duo way ahead of everybody else in the game and these two hit men also happen to be gay (Robert Webber and Gig Young). Riding around in limos with their own lawyer and accountant while staying in fancy hotels and paying off low life informants (plus violently assaulting any women who takes an interest in either of them), they strike pay dirt when they wander into one sleazy bar and meet its resident gringo piano player, Bennie (Oates), who feigns ignorance but promises to look into it for them. Turns out that Oates DOES at least know of who Garcia is and shortly after learns that he has also recently had a tryst with Oates’ prostitute girlfriend (Isela Vega) which naturally makes Oates think of killing him himself. But then she imparts to him the even more shocking news that Alfredo has just been killed in an accident and is now on his way to his hometown to be buried. Upon informing the twosome of this development, they tell him that the deal is still on and contractually outsource Oates to find the body and retrieve the head for them in exchange for a relatively paltry sum. Oates agrees to the deal and off he goes with his girlfriend for what will be a violent, bloody ride, one which turns into a ride of vengeance for Oates and even Alfredo himself (whose severed head when found is kept in a burlap sack and never actually seen on camera). There’s a point early on where it appears that pacing might be an issue (as it was for Peckinpah with The Wild Bunch) especially after a near ten minute scene between Oates and his girlfriend talking about getting married while sitting underneath a tree. But not long after we then get a bit where they are waylaid by two rape happy bikers (one of whom is Kris Kristofferson!) and are forced to fight for their lives before escaping to arrive at Alfredo’s grave just in time for his funeral, at which point Oates has to listen to his girl agonize over the disgusting sin of desecrating a dead man’s grave, not to mention the fact that other interested parties are descending upon them also looking to get rich and there’s even Alfredo’s own family who carry some strong opinions about such an arrangement. But nonetheless the real drawing card here is Oates himself, who not only spends most of the second half of the movie in possession of the head, but also forms some kind of a twisted bond with it, even going so far as to have conversations with “Al” and upon realizing the sick motives for these circumstances when it comes to the men who hired him (and the evil old bastard who hired them), he decides that it’s time to get a little payback for the both of “them”, bringing to light the film’s contrast between that of living to make money and obtain profit (and the depraved things that one would be willing to do to achieve that end) or that of living for your own values and standards for which no amount of money could ever buy your compromising of such things even if you have to sometimes fight for your life in order to maintain them. Oates is indeed fantastic in the role, a grubby little nothing who comes to realize that these fucked up circumstances have wound up giving him his true calling in life, all while he declares war on those even sicker souls who think that a man’s life, dignity or even his head is worth plowing through almost every other human being whom you meet in order to pick up some amount of financial gain. Instead it turns out that Oates is the one who is now imbued to plow through THEM with one shootout after another that leads up to a mesmerizing conclusion which, while not having as high a body count as Wild Bunch’s finale, does manage to best that earlier movie in terms of overall emotional impact, one where Oates rejects his enemies’ values in order to do the right thing in his own mind (which he does) and both he and Peckinpah manage to come up with one of their greatest works, something that is not only every bit as visceral as every other violent movie that Peckinpah ever made (or any other violent movie ever made, period), but also successfully manages to depict what one man alone in a world filled with twisted miscreants (ironically Oates seems to be the only character in the movie to either use foul language or come completely unglued as everyone else always seems to remain cool, calm and collected) has to do in order to send the message home that those who commit evil acts in this world (no matter how rich or powerful) will one day find themselves faced with an agent of kharma and when that happens, neither their wealth nor their strength will be able to save them at the moment of truth…
9/10