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Amazon.com Sam Peckinpah knew he couldn't call a movie Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and get away with it. That's why he did it. When he undertook this nakedly personal project, in self-exile in Mexico, the director was a deeply bitter man out of favor with critics, the media, and the Hollywood establishment, which had just released his Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid in a mutilated version. "Bring Me the Head..." sounded like the parody title of an ultraviolent Sam Peckinpah movie, and he flung it in our faces just as his onscreen surrogate tosses the titular object at the camera.Thing is, the movie is a masterpiece--raw, shocking, beautiful, and brave--in which Peckinpah confronts his enemies and his own demons. Warren Oates plays a gringo piano-player stuck in Mexico who hears that some powerful men are willing to pay a bounty on a guy he knows. They don't know the guy is already dead, killed in a car accident. It'll be easy to exhume the trophy and collect the money--except that it will cost our seedy hero everything he has and ever wanted. John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre had always been a key legend for Peckinpah; this film is a subterranean re-imagining of it, with Oates as both the son of Fred C. Dobbs and the carnival-mirror reflection of Peckinpah himself. And Isela Vega's performance as the sainted whore Elita--bruised and worldly one minute, radiant and clear-skinned as a child the next--is an act of grace. --Richard T. Jameson ... Read more Reviews (31) 
Lesser-known Peckinpah classic
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a dark, raw Sam Peckinpah modernized western that has finally been released on DVD.When a rich Mexican rancher's daughter gets pregnant out of wedlock, the rancher offers a bounty of $1 million for the head of Alfredo Garcia, the man who impregnated his daughter.Two of El Jefe's, the rancher, lieutenants enlist the help of Bennie, a down on his luck piano player, to help them find Garcia.Along with his girlfriend, Elita, Bennie embarks on a journey through Mexico to find Garcia and take his head.However, what Bennie sees as an opportunity for a new life, Elita sees as something completely morally wrong.This is an incredible movie to watch as you follow Bennie's journey.It is raw, basic, and violent.I've read that the Bennie character is basically Sam Peckinpah's real life persona, and you can see this easily. This movie isn't as well known as some other Peckinpah movies like the Wild Bunch or The Getaway, but don't let that stop you from seeing this movie.A must have for Peckinpah fans!
Warren Oates is excellent as Bennie, the down-and-out piano player who becomes obsessed with bringing in Alfredo Garcia's head for a reward.It is a shame Oates did not get more starring roles in his career because characters like this allowed him to show off his acting ability.Isela Vega plays Elita, Bennie's girlfriend who isn't sure if they should go through with the mission.Vega is very good, but her part is distracting as she is topless for much of the first hour.The cast also includes Robert Webber and Gig Young as Sappensly and Quill, the rancher's lieutenants, Helmut Dantine as Max, Emilio Fernandez as El Jefe, and Kris Kristofferson in a small part as Paco, a wayward motorcyclist.The DVD offers widescreen presentation, a good commentary track with Peckinpah scholars/biographers, and a theatrical trailer.For an excellent Peckinpah movie at its most basic, check out Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia!
This movie is a hoot!The ultimate road trip movie!
Alfredo Garcia is a Mexican Don Juan who gets the wrong girl in trouble and her father, the patron of a great Mexican estate, puts a big bounty on his head.Pekinpah regular Warren Oates is a loser expatriate American making his living as a piano player in a lowlife Mexican bar.(You'll recognize him as the deserter who got shot in Major Dundee, and one of the two brothers in the Wild Bunch, the guy who when drunk got engaged to a Mexican prostitute, "Boys, I'd like you to meet my fiancé.")Since he knows Alfredo he is offered $10k (which was worth a lot more then than it is today) to murder Alfredo and bring back his head as proof.Oates quickly discovers that Alfredo has already died.He therefore departs on a road trip to a remote Mexican graveyard to get the head and claim his reward, taking along his mistress a gorgeous but aging Mexican prostitute who obviously is of mostly European descent.Along the way they encounter various lowlifes and other bounty hunters.Robert Webber and Gig Young, two well known middle-aged actors of the 1960s, are American goons who are hired by the same employers to make sure that the job gets done right.It turns out that Alfredo has a large family and his relatives, for some strange reason, object to the removal of his head from the grave.Then Oates has to collect his money from his employers who are not exactly sterling characters either.This movie is a hoot!Oates has some really great lines that you have to see to believe.Kris Kristoferson appears briefly as a lowlife biker.The violence is pure Pekinpah.If Mexico didn't exist I think that Pekinpah would have had to invent it.Besides this movie, they go down to Mexico in the Wild Bunch, Major Dundee, and even at the very end of the Getaway.If you like those other movies you'll probably like this one too, although it has a darker mood to it.Also, Warren Oates has to carry this movie by himself, he doesn't have the big stars with him like in those other movies.
No One Loses All The Time...
I loved this film! The late great Warren Oates stars as a woeful anti-hero out on a quest for the head of Alfredo Garcia. He's being paid by a wealthy rancher's lieutenants to bring back proof of Garcia's death, his head. Only Garcia died in a car accident and has already been buried. I don't want to give away the entire plot. One of the criticisms of this film was that it was too violent which I found surprising considering that the violence was pretty mellow by today's standards. Most of the film consists of drama dialog between the anti-hero and his woman. The dialog between characters makes this film the masterpiece what it is. I highly recommend it.
Road Trip From Hell
Possibly the most difficult Peckinpah film to watch, this nasty 70's gem is interminable in its first 45 minutes, then the remainder of the movie reaches a near frenzy of suspense, murder, and the usual ambiguousness Peckinpah was known for.
The viewer can count on the usual Peckinpah trademarks:
-Gratuitous violence towards women;
-Balletic, slow-motion graphic violence;
-an unlikeable anti-hero;
-consumption of mass quantities of hard alcohol;
-a sometimes rambling narrative;
-a nihilistic ending.
This is not to say this movie is bad; far from it. At times it approaches the level of self-parody, but Peckinpah had a story in his mind he wanted to capture, and he does so in his inimitable fashion.
The road trip consists first of Warren Oates and his girlfriend seeking the head of the titular character, then the road trip evolves into Oates transporting the head, sans girlfriend, to the Mexican land baron who put the price on the head. Along the way, many people die in beautifully edited slow-motion as only Peckinpah can do.
Plot holes aside, it is a very gripping movie once it kicks in at about the 45 minute mark. Look for Kris Kristoferson in a cameo as a filthy biker/rapist, as well as Robert Webber and Gig Young as stone cold killers/businessmen.
This movie, along with Straw Dogs, cemented Peckinpah's reputation as a misogynist. As mentioned above, there are plenty of scenes of women being physically abused for no apparent reason, so those of you with feminist girlfriend's/wives may want to watch this after they've gone to bed.
I'm still trying to figure out how Warren Oates transported the head aboard AeroMexico!
Head Cheese
"Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" plays like a parody of Sam Peckinpah films with one distinction:Peckinpah directed it.This may be purely intentional on the part of Peckinpah in response to his critics for the excesses in his films.I think.The first hour or so kind of meanders redeemed by the tender exchanges between star Warren Oates and Isela Vega.Every now and then Peckinpah interrupts these moments to exploit the obvious charms of Vega in the buff.There's even a bizarre quasi-rape scene with Kris Kristofferson playing a biker.It's not until the film's second half that it kick's into second gear as Oates retrieves the aforementioned title head.Oates' conversations with the head and his efforts to preserve it so he can collect the bounty on it can only be described as the darkest of dark comedy.Of course there are other interested parties who would love to relieve Oates of his booty so naturally it would not be a Peckinpah film without gunplay and gratuitous bloodshed done in glorious slo-mo.An interesting entry in the Peckinpah canon but not on the level of "The Wild Bunch" or "Straw Dogs".
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