Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Directed by Sam Peckinpah. Starring Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Gig Young, Emilio Fernández, Helmut Dantine, Kris Kristofferson, Donnie Fritts, Chano Urueta. [R]

In arguably his definitive film role (and a rare lead), Oates plays a small-time pianist/bartender who seizes the opportunity to make a little money when he learns about a bounty on the head of Alfredo Garcia, the man who is rumored to have knocked up the daughter of Fernández’s ruthless Mexican crime lord. Key to Oates’ involvement is his knowledge that Garcia is already dead—he just needs to collect the guy’s head from a cemetery—but it turns out to be anything but an easy job. Deliberately paced at the outset like a bad hangover (Peckinpah even pauses long enough for Oates to discover that he picked up crabs after sleeping with prostitute lover Vega), and the relentless misogyny wears thin, but it’s a strangely absorbing sort of odyssey of macho violence and symbolic discovery. Savaged by most critics and ignored by audiences when first released, it has enjoyed an appreciative reappraisal in the years since; it’s not peak Peckinpah, but it’s the film of his he was most satisfied with (due largely to a lack of studio interference). Screenplay credited to Peckinpah and Gordon Dawson.

77/100