Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia

This is some kind of bizarre masterpiece. The title says everything you need to know about the plot. Warren Oates is perfect as the displaced gringo who isn't really a bad guy but who is willing to cut a few moral corners to get what he thinks he wants and he is matched by Isela Vegas as his earthy and sensual girlfriend who is horrified to be on such a mission. Gig Young & Robert Webber seem to be channeling William Burroughs with their off-kilter couple of gay hit-men. Kris Kristofferson shows up as a rapist-biker. And the severed head is carried around in a grisly burlap bag that collects flies at a furoius rate. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

i am not sure what Sam Peckinpah is trying to say here , maybe, LIFE SUCKS, DIE. or perhaps, "All is vanity--except maybe there is something that isn't." but he has made a strange, sad poem about the human condition, with gunfights!

Easily the most nihilistic of all of Peckinpah's films, this grim 1974 mix of western, crime, and horror elements set in present-day Mexico remains the subject of much invective. Some see it as a bizarre masterpiece, others see it as filthy trash. Most certainly it IS weird, bizarre, bleak, and full of despair.

Warren Oates, in a role that is part Humphrey Bogart (TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, which ALFREDO GARCIA resembles somewhat) and part Peckinpah (no surprise there), is excellent as the American expatriot barfly who is hired on by two hitmen (Robert Webber, Gig Young) to retrieve the head of a two-timing Mexican gigolo named Alfredo Garcia--and JUST the head. They offer him a $10,000 reward and Oates goes off on his mad quest with his girlfriend (Isela Vega) who once romanced with Garcia.

Getting Garcia's top ought to be a piece of cake, because he's dead. It is anything BUT that. And when he is bonged over the head with a shovel in a Mexican graveyard and Vega is killed, the film takes an ever-accelerating ride towards a bullet-riddled finale. As Oates finds out, so many people want the head of Alfredo Garcia because the millionaire (Emilio Fernandez) who screamed for the man's head was offering a million dollars (!).

This weird movie has to be seen to be believed. Peckinpah's trademark slow-mo violence is here, though not in the apocalyptic way it was in THE WILD BUNCH. The basic themes of redemption, killing, and Oates' macabre quest (the head is kept in a sack, with the flies buzzing all around it) are incredible. ALFREDO GARCIA is furthermore blessed with a fine score by Jerry Fielding that is part Mexican and also partially like his score for Peckinpah's 1971 horror film STRAW DOGS.

To be sure, even more than a quarter century later, ALFREDO GARCIA is not everyone's cup of tea. But for Peckinpah lovers, it is a must-have.

I won't repeat details of the film that have been admirably described in several other reviews. I will say, though, that the description of this film as a bloody, raw, existential revenge pic can obscure the fact that at the heart of this film is a very subtle and tender relationship that is destroyed by the pragmatics of life in a dog eat dog world.

Bennie is an undercompensated piano player (living in Mexico) who loves Elita, a local prostitute. He has to prostitute his talents to stupid gringo tourists in the way she must sell herself to get by; while neither seem fully satisfied, both are pragmatic about it, but only she seems resigned to her occupation. He can't ask her to quit and marry him because he can't afford it. There is also the chance that she would not want to be totally dependent upon one man, although she clearly does love him. He is no killer, just down on his luck, and jumps at the chance to make some money when he realizes that Alfredo Garcia is already dead and he can do what is necessary without hurting anyone. After all, the dead Garcia owes something to Elita, doesn't he? The problem is that he has no idea what he's getting himself into.

What I think is most unexpected and wonderful about this film is that it depicts the romanticism of Bennie and Elita in such a tender and thoughtful way (before shooting it down). He plays guitar while she sings. They speak longingly of a future together, that neither can really believe is possible. He is jealous of her relationship with Alfredo Garcia, but not vindictive, and forgives wholeheartedly. He sits nearby, touching her foot, while she crouches fetal position in the shower, weeping after she understands his plan. This is not bloody and brutal after the fashion of recent work such as The Devil's Rejects (which is sometimes compared to Peckinpah); the violence of the film stands in stark contrast to the simple tenderness of two people who can barely see a way out of their difficult lives but hold onto hope while they still have each other.