Review of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) by Carlo V — 15 Jul 2009

Reviled by many, considered by some to be San Peckinpah's masterpiece, this existential modern-day western Mexican manhunt features the always-welcome Warren Oates. It revels in cruelty, grunginess, misogyny--indeed, misanthropy--slow-motion death, and some terrific lines.

Shoving off goons hanging around a cemetery: "Don't look at me with your goddamn fuckin' eyes!" To an already-dead body as he shoots it: "Why? Because it feels so damn good!" And to his prostitute girlfriend who objects to gathering up the head of a man dead and buried: "The church cuts off the feet, fingers, any other goddamn thing from the saints, don't they? Well, what the hell? Alfredo's our saint.

He's the saint of our money, and I'm gonna borrow a piece of him." Also contains the classic bit, perhaps a cinematic anomaly, of trying to kill crabs with tequila. Yes, those kinds of crabs.

There is nothing Warren Oates cannot do.