Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Wuchak Released in 1968, "Villa Rides" stars Robert Mitchum as a Texas pilot/gunrunner who is thrust into the Mexican Revolution by his own greed. After being disillusioned by the Colorados (Orozquistas), he hooks up with bandit-turned-nationalist Pancho Villa (Yul Brynner) & his hardened patriots to face off against the Colorados in Northern Mexico. Charles Bronson and Robert Viharo play Villa's grim and merry assistants respectively while Maria Grazia Buccella is on hand as a woman that strikes the pilot's fancy. Herbert Lom appears as an enemy general while Alexander Knox plays naïve President Madero. Jill Ireland has a small role at the end. Sam Peckinpah wrote the original screenplay and was slated to direct, but Brynner felt the script made Villa out to be too harsh, so Yul used his pull to get Robert Towne to rewrite it and the producers pursued another director, ending up with Buzz Kulik.While this is more historical fiction than reality, it does successfully bring you back in time to the Mexican Revolution and helps you envision what it must have been like to ride with the legendary Villa. The movie definitely has more credibility than the incongruously-toned "Pancho Villa" (1972) with Telly Savalas in the titular role (although that Western is worth catching just for Villa's "invasion" of America with his raid on Columbus, New Mexico, a town three miles from the border, on March 9, 1916). The first half of "Villa Rides" is a decent Western, but the action-packed second half starts to go off the rails, as far as sustaining the viewer's interest. The filmmakers obviously needed to take more time to work the kinks out and draw forth the film's potential. The movie runs 122 minutes and was shot in Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha & Madrid, Spain and Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora & Guanajuato City). GRADE: Borderline C+/B-

Coventry "Villa Rides" is what happens when you allow Hollywood people to reproduce the Mexican Revolution! I can still tolerate the humor that white-faced heroes like Yul Brunner and Charles Bronson are depicting full-blooded Mexican gunslingers, but one thing we cannot possibly accept is that Yul Brunner - genuine tough guy and symbol of manliness – plays a character with a head full of hair! What a disgrace! It's the end of the world as we know it! It's … basically a very entertaining western, even though the almighty Brunner is slightly miscast. I'm also not an expert regarding the life and work of Francisco "Pancho" Villa (and too lazy to read the entire Wikipedia page) but the film draws an admirable picture of his political as well as his personal convictions during the earlier stages of La Revolución. However, cinematic mastodons Robert Towne and Sam Peckinpah also decided it would be a good idea to throw an all-American action figure into the battle (presumably to help the audience identify with the story a little bit) in the shape of Robert Mitchum. He portrays a sly pilot providing the Mexican army with weapons, but following a crash and a crush he is gradually forced to join the rebellious side. "Villa Rides" is worth recommending to fans of the action & western genre for only two reasons already. The battle sequences are impressively shot, with hundreds of extras, imaginative camera angles and brutal violence. And then most of all: Charles Bronson! Charlie clearly enjoys what is probably one of the most amusing roles of his career; Villa's loyal right hand lieutenant and unscrupulous executioner Rodolfo Fierro. He makes the process of shooting prisoners entertaining (by giving five people at once a slim chance to escape over a wall) as well as money-saving (by killing three prisoners in a row with just one bullet). If you're still not convinced just yet, Herbert Lom and Fernando Rey shine in masterful supportive roles and "La Cucaracha'" is on the soundtrack, too!

Alan S First time I saw this movie I thought it was excellent, I was about twelve then. I still have a fondness for it, and will watch it whenever I find it on t.v.I am not a student of Mexican history, nor do I pretend to be, but I enjoyed it, and will watch it again all over. If you are looking for a life changing event then this is not it,(really if you want to change your life then get off of the couch, movies are not life, not even a substitute, go out, meet someone, have a fling, live a LIFE) if you want an amusing hour and a half, then this should do the job for you.What more can you you want from a movie?

GenotheGreat2003 What could have been a great movie by a trio of excellent actors reduces to a travelogue of somebody's desert and some beautiful scenes of an otherwise obsolete WW I airplane. As far as I can gather, it is historically accurate, but for my money, the only redeeming feature is the unbelievably haunting theme, which recurs throughout the film. Essentially, it is this theme that propels the movie along. Some great cinematography, though.Yul Brenner, as Pancho Villa, is terrible miscast: Villa was a short, round faced Mexican taken to wearing serapes and large sombreros. Brenner seems to be recovering from his role in the King and I. Charles Bronson as usual, turns in a solid performance, but is overshadowed by Mitchum and Brenner. The other characters and roles are essentially cardboard cutouts of the stereotypical Mexicans. If it comes on TV, see it if you don't have anything else to do.