Review of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) by Rocknblues 8 — 06 Aug 2010

Sam Peckinpah is highly touted in the western film community. But when you see his work outside of westerns it's obvious that Sam has a very bizarre mindset. Straw Dogs in 1971 was nearly as disturbing as the more popular A Clockwork Orange. With this film he has created a mix of a western, a crime drama and a very dark comedy. The low life going trying to get rich by collecting a bounty is not entirely original, but it's not often that the prize is the head of a man! But that's what you got here.

Warren Oates stars as Bennie... Bennie is a low class bartender who overhears about a bounty from a couple of bounty hunters. Naturally Bennie sees this as a solution to lifes problem, so he sets out to collect the 1 million dollars. But it doesn't come easy... He meets up with Alfredo's former girlfriend and develops a strong bond. But it's sort lived as she basically gets caught up in the deathly bounty game.

The key to it all is that Alfredo is already dead and getting his head back to collect the bounty money comes at a price. People get hurt and killed which leads to Bennie having a growing resentment of the man who sent the bounty in the first place. Bennie starts to talk to the severed head, and he decides to seek revenge on the man who got the ball rolling in all of this.

After you watch the film you realize the title is foreshadowing the biggest part of the film. The black comedy. Warren Oates makes the Bennie character work. If you play the script out in your head, you would expect a hammy and campy performance. But Oates grounded and focused acting helps make this surrealistic film work as a true film of art instead of a parody of the crime drama genre.