the ultimate sam peckinpah film

It's a western, a romance, an action movie, a horror film, a road movie, a revenge story, a black comedy and a tragedy all rolled into one. There's so much going on in this picture, and even if the screenwriter asserts that he was writing in a faux "Peckinpah doing Peckinpah" style - hitting all the usual standards - this is, to me, the quintessential Sam movie. Hitting his favorite themes of honor, burning out, redemption, infidelity, the loser's last grasp for the big brass ring.

It doesn't have the tight technique of The Wild Bunch or the precision of craft that made The Getaway a cut above, but this one is RAW. And it revels in it. Yet it's completely endearing. It's the only believable love story I've seen Peckinpah put on film, discounting the old fraternal love between cowboys. You really feel for Benny when he comes to in that shallow grave to find himself stripped away of EVERYTHING.

An incredibly personal saga, it's an odyssey through Peckinpah himself and is essential in understanding his genius as a pure storyteller.

How about the scene where the gay hit man elbows that woman?! That was shocking AND hilarious!

Ebert's love of this movie really surprises me. Then again, he's a critic I often agree with...his dismissals of David Lynch, Theo Angelopoulous, and a few others aside.

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This is one of those terms that people seem to like to throw around with fairly little justification, after which it sticks. I guess because Peckinpah's films are very violent and overtly masculine and sometimes feature violence towards women. Of course, they're not instructional films. It's supposed to be bad. The mother of Garcia's child is wronged at the beginning of the movie, but ultimately comes out on top.
Maybe the depiction of Elita, who cheats on Bennie, gives him crabs and tries to block him achieving his goal. At one point she tells Bennie he doesn't understand "a woman's ways," which could be interpreted as saying women are illogical, but might just be Peckinpah admitting his own shortcoming. How can a male Director or Screenwriter accurately depict female characters anyways? The one thing that intrigued me was that it seemed like she saw something in Kristofferson's biker character, and even seemed drawn to him after Bennie shot him. But all of these things just seem to point to Peckinpah having issues with women, and hardly justification for calling someone "deeply misogynistic." Ultimately, the relationship between Bennie and Elita is the one ray of light in a very dark movie. I think a lot of people just read something like this and think that parroting it makes them sound smart.