Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Alfredo Garcia


I’ve been waiting for this film to come out for ages since I saw it on terrestrial telly years ago. Finally its come out on dvd uncut for the first time and when it dropped through my letterbox I had to watch it immediately. If any film should be remade by Tarrantino or Rodriguez its this movie, it’s begging for it. The film was made back in 1974 by Sam Peckinpah and stars the much underrated Warren Oates as ‘Bennie’ and the gorgeous Isela Vega as his occasional squeeze / girlfriend ‘Elita’.

The plot is simple, a Mexican landowner has put a bounty of one million dollars on the head of a guy named ‘Alfredo Garcia’ who has got jiggy with his daughter and left her pregnant. Every man and is dog is out looking for Alfredo to get the bounty. Two American hoods walk into a bar and bump into Bennie that plays the Piano there, they show him Alfredo's photo and so begins Bennie's tequila fuelled trek across Mexico with Elita. It turns out Alfredo is a bit of a lad and has recently slept with Elita too, Elita it seems does a bit on the side for extra cash when the fancy takes her, Bennie knows this and so she is instrumental in his quest to find Alfredo Garcia. Bennie and Elita’s trip isn’t a conventional one, things go wrong, people get killed, more tequila gets drunk. It’s a dark gritty road trip of a movie with a far from happy ending. You identify with Bennie because he’s one of those ‘down on his luck guys’ hoping for a big break. When all seems to be going right for Bennie it suddenly goes wrong and he loses it. Okay, the film is sort of tame by today’s standards but it has a charm that’s compelling to watch. To learn more click here

1 comment:

pat said...

the last thing that a good film needs is to be remade by qt.
though qt does need to make a good film.