“We're not gonna get rid of anybody! We're gonna stick together, just like it used to be! When you side with a man, you stay with him! And if you can't do that, you're like some animal, you're finished! We're finished! All of us!”

I have reached the point that I can dream most lines in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch and I don’t even want to recount how many times I have seen this brilliant movie. Usually I try to avoid reviewing movies of which so much has been written about – which certainly is the case of The Wild Bunch – but getting to see it in the cinema as part of the EYE Amsterdam Michael Mann exhibition (showing all of Mann’s movies as well as some of his personal favourites, including The Wild Bunch) changed my mind. The fact that someone walked out of the cinema during the famous final shootout, or more precise at the moment when Borgnine uses a woman as a human shield, testifies the impact the movie still has on its audiences fifty years after it was released.

Famous for its violence, The Wild Bunch however is so much more than that. It’s one of many movies trying to depict the passing of a generation of men born too late for their own time, as one of the poster taglines puts it. The idea of ‘thinking beyond our guns’, but in the end being unable or actually not wanting to change is at the heart of this film and it’s one of the few films that has succeeded in depicting this in such a compelling way. The depth of the characters, their background – especially the old friendship between Ryan and Holden’s and the latter’s guilt over what transpired – and the male bonding which is a recurring theme in all Peckinpah’s westerns (and his only war movie as well) makes it such a rich movie experience. Yes, the violence is there and in many ways gave it the reputation that it has today, but there are so many quieter moments in The Wild Bunch that help understand why in the end decide they not to change but seek death in a suicidal showdown. (Gibson knows how to direct action scenes, but I doubt that he will be able to recreate these quieter moments in his remake).

Despite the ‘Bunch’ being utterly violent and, if need be, ruthless, they still possess their own outdated values and code of honour (as exemplified by Holden’s famous quote above) which ultimately compels them to save their tortured friend. Thus, by the time the ‘Bunch’ walks towards its inevitable (heroic) end, it’s actually believable. When Holden says ‘Let’s go’, there is no need to explain and Oates’ reply says everything that needs to be said: ‘Why not!’ The shootout by itself ranks as one of the most spectacular 6 minutes in movie history; Borgnine’s “Give 'em hell Pike!” as Holden is making his last stand wielding the machine-gun never ceases to give me goose bumps. But the moment leading up to this outburst of violence, when they can possibly still bluff their way out of the stand-off but instead start laughing as if welcoming their death, to me is the defining moment of the entire movie. What follows is movie history.

“Oh my, what a bunch!”