Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
1974 Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Synopsis
It's got guts!
An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.
Cast
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The title alone makes it safe to expect Sam Peckinpah's signature brand of boundary pushing violence. After discovering the name of the father of his shamed teenage daughter's unborn baby, a powerful Mexican boss who goes by the name El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez) orders, in a moment of angry passion,"bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia." One of many in search of him is Bennie (Warren Oates), a former U.S. army officer making a living as a piano player/bar manager. So, Bennie is going to track down a kill him, right? Wrong, here's the kicker; Alfredo Garcia is already dead. We learn this from Bennie's on-and-off lover, Elita (Isela Vega). Peckinpah instead focuses a great deal on how this morbid…
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All the grit one could ever ask for. Warren Oates is amazing.
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Just before I joined Letterboxd last year I watched Straw Dogs and thought it was an absolutely superb film. It was at that point that I thought I finally 'got' Sam Peckinpah.
Before that I just didn't get it. I had seen several of his films but never really warmed to them to anything like the extent that most other people had. So I entered Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (but only after YouTube had suggested to me that I might have wanted to watch Bring Me The Head Of Mavis Davis - no thanks!) with a lot less concern than I entered my first viewing of Straw Dogs, thinking that I had put…
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This might be the greatest last chance/revenge picture ever made. Everything about it works.
Few filmmakers made more great films than Sam Peckinpah and this is one of his best. What starts out as a simple enough way to make some extra money quickly spirals into a man's last chance at happiness and then, finally, the only thing keeping him alive. A mad quest by a man with nothing to lose clinging to the only crazy thing he can to make sense of everything. Eventually, it isn't about anything at all. An absolute masterpiece of film that belongs in every film lover's library.
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It takes a little while to get going but once Kris Kristofferson gets all rapey things pick up a bit. Warren Oates is quite brilliant from start to finish, especially finish. His descent from arrogant bartender to crazed lunatic carrying around a head in a sack is one of the most enjoyable to watch character arcs I've seen. It's just that for me, without Oates there's not a huge amount that appeals to this movie watcher, in much the same way I've been a bit nonplussed with other Peckinpah's in the past.
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A very funny and dark bizarre and bleak cult masterpiece.
Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia is a great movie title which picked my immediate interest.
Warren Oates as Bennie, a down on his luck piano player in a sleazy Mexican bar accepts an assignment to bring the head of Alfredo Garcia to El Jefe. Alfredo Garcia crime being that he had impregnated the daughter of El Jefe. Fortunately (or unfortunately from Alfredo Garcia's perspective) Bennie knows Alfredo, since his prostitute girlfriend used to have Alfredo as her lover and she informs Bennie that Alfredo died in a car accident just recently.
Determined to turn his bad luck Bennie decides to take Elita to show him where Alfredo's grave…
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an over the top genre movie that takes things so far that it is impossible to not be amused and entertained.
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It takes a little while to get going but once Kris Kristofferson gets all rapey things pick up a bit. Warren Oates is quite brilliant from start to finish, especially finish. His descent from arrogant bartender to crazed lunatic carrying around a head in a sack is one of the most enjoyable to watch character arcs I've seen. It's just that for me, without Oates there's not a huge amount that appeals to this movie watcher, in much the same way I've been a bit nonplussed with other Peckinpah's in the past.
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A very funny and dark bizarre and bleak cult masterpiece.
Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia is a great movie title which picked my immediate interest.
Warren Oates as Bennie, a down on his luck piano player in a sleazy Mexican bar accepts an assignment to bring the head of Alfredo Garcia to El Jefe. Alfredo Garcia crime being that he had impregnated the daughter of El Jefe. Fortunately (or unfortunately from Alfredo Garcia's perspective) Bennie knows Alfredo, since his prostitute girlfriend used to have Alfredo as her lover and she informs Bennie that Alfredo died in a car accident just recently.
Determined to turn his bad luck Bennie decides to take Elita to show him where Alfredo's grave… -
stressful
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All the grit one could ever ask for. Warren Oates is amazing.
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Watched as part of my Peckinpah Manly Man films season.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia gets dirtier as the movie goes on, much the same as Warren Oates' sweaty, dirt and blood covered white suit. Gradually ruined by his descent into madness. The film is as sleaze riddled as Kris Kristofferson's rapey biker. It made me feel dirty. All credit to Warren Oates though. He carried the film and did so by impersonating his director. It takes some fucking balls to do that.
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This is the best Peckinpah for me. It's brutal, funny, offensive and basically everything one could want from one of Sam's films. There's romance, carnage, and even blackened buddy comedy all stuffed into one film! What's not to like?
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Another uncompromising masterpiece by Sam Peckinpah.
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this may be my most favorite film of all the films I have ever seen in my life. Chilling on multiple levels. unyielding in its visual assault.