"Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" was one of the few films in which Sam Peckinpah had complete artistic control and is all the better for it. Warren Oates delivers another great performance as a slightly over-the-hill crook who is given the task of presenting the head of the title character to a powerful Mexican family after liasoning with American gangsters to initate the deal. The action is brutal as you would expect and Peckinpah doesn't disappoint.A masterpiece of filmmaking.

The puzzle here is why this flawless film gets such a low rating, and has half a dozen pathetic and negative reviews. It is not even slightly boring, but intensely gripping throughout. It is not badly paced, but follows a perfectly judged narrative trajectory. It is beautifully written by its joint authors, superbly performed without exception by the entire cast, and directed by a genius. I don't think I've seen acting with such conviction. We can identify with Bennie. The fact is, we are all losers. We don't know why we are here, and whatever happens, our friends will die, and we will end up dead ourselves. On the other hand, nobody loses all the time. This is Shakespearean, up there with Titus and Lear, a mind-expanding vision and a revelation. In the end, the dollars are worthless, it's the struggle, and the fighting spirit, which have value. I have watched it many times, and it never disappoints.

Sam Peckinpah masterfully directs this tale of a road trip taken by a bartender and his prostitute girl friend to bring the head of Alfredo Garcia to a wealthy landlord whose daughter was impregnated by Garcia. There is the trademark violence, the bodies slowly falling to the ground, the mandatory topless females, all which are hallmark of every Peckinpah movie. The direction and the acting by Oates as the bartender are the highlights of the movie. The movie could have been dull and boring in the hands of a lesser director. Here, Peckinpah brings in all his raw energy and the action scenes which electrify you and leave you spellbound. This is my fifth Peckinpah movie after Straw Dogs, Cross of Iron, The Getaway and The Wild Bunch and I have always been amazed by the vision of Peckinpah. he was born 30 years early. Tarantino's movies are the closest homage to him. 4 out of 5 for this. Recommended for the lovers of intense and gripping cinema.

Warren Oates, in a career best performance, unravels magnificently down Mexico way in Peckinpah's criminally underrated nouveau Gothic masterpiece. This film is gradually coming into it's own as a unique pre-Pulp Fiction nightmare. Initially marginalised in the scheme of the director's work it is now reappraised as one of his major achievements. Weird romanticism, shattering violence, morbid subject matter, all combine to make it a truly original cinematic experience.The obvious signpost to the progressively nihilistic tone of the movie is given earlier on when Gig Young is asked for his name by Bennie (Warren Oates). He replies "Dobbs. Fred C. Dobbs." The name is that of the Humphrey Bogart character in John Huston's classic "The Treasure of The Sierra Madre." Bogart's character was driven mad by greed in that movie, in his futile search for an elusive treasure. Peckinpah's vision encompasses many of the same themes, yet is far darker. As Oates' character spirals into psychosis during his journey through the searing and filthy Mexican badlands, he maintains a fractured, rambling dialogue with the decaying, severed head of Alfredo and coldly guns down those who get in his way.Bennie is a loser, a pianist in a dead end bar, cuckolded by the woman he loves who got it on with Alfredo (a friend of Bennie's); he's broke and living in squalor, he perceives obtaining the severed head of his dead friend as a way out. This is his "golden fleece," a passport to a better life. In the process of digging up the body, his girl is murdered and Bennie's personality disintegrates. As he pumps bullet after bullet into the corpse of one of the hoods who whacked his chick, he spits: "Why? Because it feels so damn good!" The role is one that Warren Oates was made for. Seldom a leading man in Hollywood, his history of character parts provide him with the experience needed to invest Bennie with the complex traits of a complete anti-hero. Each tic, each mannerism, the almost improvised quality of his dialogue delivery, results in a totally believable performance.Although many believe that Peckinpah's direction here is "messy and unfocused" on reflection it seems more of a deliberate ploy to accentuate the nightmarish quality of the narrative. Bennie swigs Tequila almost constantly throughout the movie, and very often - combined with the obligatory slow motion violence and gun-play - the result is as if the audience is viewing the action through the languorous gaze of a drunk. Or maybe that's just my imagination running away with me. Or my own alcohol intake influencing my perception.This is probably Peckinpah's most personal film, and his last grand masterpiece. As such it is one of the most original pieces of mainstream cinema ever produced. If you like Tarantino and Rodriguez, this movie will give a sense of where some of their roots are sunk. Ultimately, a journey into the heart of darkness that makes Apocalypse Now seem like a paddle through a Disneyland water park.