Too much of everything

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

In the last years of Civil War, Apache warriors led by Sierra Charriba started raiding New Mexico. On Oct 31, 1864, a company of the 5th US Calvalry was massacred. The sole survivor returns with relief led by Major Dundee (Charlton Heston). Sam Potts (James Coburn) is his one-armed scout. Dundee recruits Confederate prisoners for the fight. At first, Confederate Captain Tyreen (Richard Harris) holds an old grudge against his former friend and refuses to join. However he faces the hangman and does a deal to lead his men. The mix bag of Confederates, US Cavalry, Negroes and Apache scout are on the hunt for the renegade Apaches. When the Apaches ambush them, they lose many men and most of their supplies. Dundee leads his men in a raid on French forces in Mexico.The troubled production may have affected the final product. The first half is simple enough. I find it interesting that the movie is diving into the split between North and South by including Negro troops. It's a bit too much and a little fake about the whole situation. The Apaches are shortchanged as characters. Then Dundee attacks the French in a highly questionable action. It starts as slightly fake to something unrealistic. Peckinpah does have an eye for action and that is the best part of the movie. The story feels too messy. The actors are bogged down by too many things. There's no need for Dundee and Tyreen to know each other from before. While I like the action, the story is a convoluted mess.

Though at times this displays director Sam Peckinpah's penchant for self-indulgence, most of the film is spot-on, with a muscular script, great Mexican locations, and an excellent, macho performance by Charleton Heston, in a role he was seemingly born to play. Likewise, Richard Harris is magnetic (in his first western) as his imprisoned Confederate counterpart, while James Coburn, along with the Peckinpah stock company, are a whole lot of fun to watch too.The only real flaw, in my opinion, is the subplot involving Dundee's seemingly forced romance with European widow Senta Berger and his recuperation from an enemy's arrow. I really couldn't imagine Heston's character having much time for courting the opposite sex. Berger does look nice though.Underrated.

Major Dundee leads a group to Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches.His group contains of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and Indian scouts.The prisoners' group is led by Benjamin Tyreen, Dundee's former friend and rival.Major Dundee from 1965 is a Sam Peckinpah movie.This is not the best of the director.But the actors do all great work.Charlton Heston plays the part of Major Amos Dundee.Richard Harris is Captain Benjamin Tyreen.Jim Hutton portrays Lieutenant Graham.James Coburn does the role of Samuel Potts.Michael Anderson Jr. is Trooper Tim Ryan.Senta Berger plays the part of Teresa Santiago.Brock Peters plays Aesop.The western guy Ben Johnson portrays Sergeant Chillum.Then there are some of the Peckinpah regulars, with Warren Oates playing O.W. Hadley, R.G. Armstrong playing Reverend Dahlstrom and L.Q. Jones playing Arthur Hadley.Slim Pickens is Wiley who likes the booze.Dub Taylor plays Benjamin Priam.Although not the finest of Peckinpah, the movie has its moments.Like the scene where Dundee is wounded by an Indian arrow after taking a swim with Teresa.And the friction between Dundee and Tyreen is captivating to watch.All the Peckinpah fans should get a kick out of this movie.

In the 1860s, in the final months of the Civil War, a Calvary Major gets five days to recruit a ragtag army to thwart the looting, bloodthirsty Apache Indians near Mexico. Picking his men from imprisoned Confederates, horse thieves, drunks, 'Negroes', and assorted volunteers, Charlton Heston's Dundee never cracks a smile, seldom stops chewing on his sideways cigar, and faces an automatic adversary in Richard Harris' Captain Tyreen, who was to be hanged for murder. Hard to know who to sympathize with here--this band of (mostly racist) soldiers are about as welcoming to us as are the marauding Apaches--and director/co-screenwriter Sam Peckinpah doesn't create genuine characters as much as he does western non-archetypes. Overlong and saddled with derivative elements (particularly in Peckinpah's flaccid direction, which show a definite influence from Stanley Kubrick), the film hasn't the humor or verve needed to carry us along on such an arduous journey. Casting is awfully dull (or, as in Harris' case, improbable) and the pacing only livens up for the large-scale sequences. *1/2 (based on the 2005 restored version) from ****