Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

tomsview Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" has much in common with "One-Eyed Jacks"; Marlon Brando's take on the Billy the Kid story, which was based on Charles Neider's novel, "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones". Although Neider's book, ridiculously renamed "Guns Up" in a Pan paperback edition (the one I read), is a fictionalised account, it is an unforgettable masterpiece, invoking a unique sense of nostalgia for the Old West. Peckinpah loved the book and was inspired to write what turned out to be the first screenplay for "One-Eyed Jacks", later made by Marlin Brando who changed just about every element. Although Peckinpah dropped out of that project early, when he finally got a chance to make his version, he moved a long way from Neider's book. In fact, the script moved closer to the historical record. However, although Neider's book is not credited, it's obvious that Peckinpah tried to capture its spirit. The story tells how Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid once rode together, but eventually found themselves on opposites sides of the law. When Billy brutally escapes from jail, in one of the film's best sequences, it sets in motion a ruthless hunt by Pat Garrett, which can only have one ending.Peckinpah actually frames the film with the death of Garrett. This sequence along with others have the trademark Peckinpah slow motion deaths with arching blood spray - techniques that had already become a little hackneyed even by 1973.However, the central problem was in Peckinpah's casting of Kris Kristofferson. Not so much, as many reviewers have suggested, that at 37 he was too old to play Billy the Kid, but more because he just didn't project the necessary sense of danger; he comes across as too affable, too laid back. Brando in "One Eyed Jacks" gave a stunning performance as a man with a dangerous edge, and although it might seem unfair to compare the two, that lack of threat is a key weakness in Peckinpah's film.Bob Dylan is in the movie and also provides a couple of very nasally songs on the soundtrack; his presence isn't just anachronistic, it's bizarre.On the other hand, James Coburn is just about perfect as Pat Garrett, and the rest of the cast is probably the greatest coming together of iconic stars from western movies ever - Chill Wills, Slim Pickens, Jack Elam, LQ Jones, Katy Jurado, Gene Evans, Paul Fix and others - one of the joys of the film is in spotting them.Apparently the film was badly cut by the studio. Despite that, and some strange decisions by Peckinpah himself, the film is nothing less than interesting. But because of all the tampering, like Brando's film, it misses out on greatness. As for Neider's book, it still awaits the right filmmaker to give it the definitive treatment on the screen.

veeckasinwreck Oh my God, what a mess! There is no narrative flow; indeed anything resembling typical plot devices to keep the story going has approximately the same role in this as dialog has in porno movies...just marking time until the next payoff (in this case, violence, not sex). The women in this movie are invariably employed in one of three ways. They either 1: Expose their breasts; 2: Scream in terror; or 3: Scream in terror with their breasts exposed. Poor Bob Dylan, who from the looks of him was going through a very bad time in his life, has a few scenes looking very uncomfortable atop a horse, for no apparent reason.

fullheadofsteam Patented Peckinpah violence opens the film, transporting the viewer immediately to a past time and place where target practice with live targets would not have been at all far-fetched. The movie then proceeds in portraying a chronologically and more worldly sophisticated Billy than the real character most likely was, and a Pat Garrett who is best amplified and probably portrayed more accurately in the Director's Cut edition of the movie (otherwise, Pat's too patently one-dimensional). Look for Peckinpah grittiness to be at it's best with the Bob Dylan and Chill Wills characters, and the most emotionally provocative scene in the entire film as "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" with classic film character actors Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado.

chorima75 I never liked "Pat Garret and Billy the Kid" very much. In fact, there are few 1970s Westerns that I like. I still find ironic that, in the decade of the feminist movement, the heroine's role became expendable, reduced to a sexual object to be used and discarded by the hero (i.e. Pat Garrett in the bathtub with the prostitutes). This said, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" contains one of the most beautiful love scenes ever made. And yes, I am conscious that this is a Sam Peckinpah film. Yet he has always been capable of tenderness (the flash-forward in "The Getaway", with McGraw and MacQueen jumping into a river, immediately comes to mind).Veterans Katy Jurado and Slim Pickens play a husband-and wife team of guns for hire, brought out of retirement for a last job. Katy Jurado had been a beauty in her earlier films (see her in "High Noon"). Here, her looks had faded, but she retained her serene demeanour. Slim Pickens had never been handsome. He usually played a crook with a mischievous smile, here substituted for a venerable old man expression. While Garret (James Coburn) deals with the last villain standing, Katy realises Slim has been shot. She runs to the river where he agonises, his stomach pierced by a bullet. She kneels opposite him, looking at him with the saddest eyes in the world, trying to absorb every second they have left. He looks back, as if saying sorry for dying. There is no dialogue. They have gone through so much together that words are unnecessary. Then, the sun sets in the background, while "Knockin' on heaven doors" plays. This is not only the death of a character. This is the death of the classic western. Jurado and Pickens had been stock figures of the genre in countless productions during the 1950s. By the late sixties, the formula had worn out. Pure heroes and heroines had no place in the cynical Vietnam era, which advocated shades of grey. Heroes (like Pat Garret) could be morally reprehensible, while it was possible to feel for the villains (like Billy the Kid). Like Jurado and Pickens, the classic western was not youthful or pretty any more, but certainly died with lots of dignity.