Such a frustrating disappointment

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

See it – Like all good Sam Peckinpah directed films, this one is exciting from start to finish. This movie came right before he did "Wild Bunch," and you can see the similarities in the fight scenes. Starting with "Wild Bunch," Peckinpah began pushing the envelope and trying to get away with more and more (violence, nudity, etc). I like "Villa Rides" because it's kind of his last normal, old-fashioned movie. He doesn't try to get all Tarantino on us; he just makes a great action movie. Yul Brynner (with hair) is pretty good as Villa, considering Brynner is actually Russian (not Mexican). A young Charles Bronson steals many of the scenes as Villa's tough, Bad-A right hand man. The movie also co-stars Robert Mitchum. This is a big epic full of sweeping battle scenes and a great cast. I'm surprised more people haven't heard of it. 4 action rating

Villa Rides is directed by Buzz Kulik and adapted to screenplay by Robert Towne and Sam Peckinpah from the biography of Pancho Villa written by William Douglas Lansford. It stars Yul Brynner, Robert Mitchum, Charles Bronson, Herbert Lom, Maria Grazia Buccella, Robert Viharo and Frank Wolff. Music is scored by Maurice Jarre and cinematography by Jack Hildyard.Film is a fictionalised telling of a period in Pancho Villa's (Brynner) life, primarily his famous involvement in the Mexican Revolution at the start of the 20th Century.The film that should have been a Peckinpah classic!? Maybe? There is no doubting that had Peckinpah been allowed to direct his own screenplay we would have got a far better, more brutal, Pancho Villa film. In fact if we just had Peckinpah's original screenplay intact and someone like Robert Aldrich to direct, then that surely would have given us a mean and moody biography of one José Doroteo Arango Arámbula (AKA: Francisco Villa or Pancho Villa)? Film history tells us that star Yul Brynner was most displeased with the portrayal of Villa as written on Bloody Sam's page. Brynner wanted, and got eventually, his Villa to be an heroic Robin Hood type man of the people, a romanticised revolutionary as it were. Not the driven bastardo prone to acts of horror and sneak tactics that Peckinpah envisaged for the film.La Cucaracha.Brynner laughably cited Peckinpah's lack of Mexican knowledge as reason for getting him off the film, laughable because Peckinpah was married to a Mexican and visited the country regularly! So Peckinpah was off, sold his screenplay to the producers, which was remodelled considerably by Robert Towne & Brynner, and he took much of the ideas from the writing for Villa Rides to craft his masterpiece a year later, The Wild Bunch. In to the director's chair came Buzz Kulik and Brynner got to don a toupee and portray Villa the way he wanted. Although, thankfully, Peckinpah's edginess does manage to flit in and out of the finished product.Viva Villa! You can't fight for the revolution if you are dead.What remains for viewing is far better than some would have you believe. True, it's no Western/War classic, some of the politico posturings fail to make a mark because they are not expanded on, and one yearns at times for some Peckinpah grit, grue and grim machinations. There's also casting issues, for although I actually don't mind Brynner as Villa because he attacks the role with fanciful relish, he is generally miscast, while Mitchum manages to get by on laconic charm rather than have a character worthy of putting effort into. But if you can forgive the obvious missteps then it's a good two hours of rip-snorting entertainment.It's always a question of money with you Gringo.Kulik (Sergeant Ryker) keeps things lively and proves adept at action directing. The battles scenes are high on quality, particularly for the engagement at Conejos, where stunt men and horses are flung around the place, explosions puncture the air, the artillery on show resplendent as it deals out damage. Hundreds of costumed extras cut a swathe through each other, a plane and a train impact greatly on proceedings, while potent scenes involving the bad things that men do add fuel to the loud expressive fire. Jarre's score is fabulous, Latino flavours mix with high energy thunder to bounce off the burning sun with aural pleasure, while Hildyard keeps the Spanish locales vibrant in colours. Then there's Bronson stealing the movie with his portrayal of Rodolfo Fierro, a man who enjoys killing and tormenting the enemy, with dark humour also etched into his make-up.Fanciful, fun and fiery, with flaws enough for sure, but still a good time to be had for the genre faithful. 7/10

So far I haven't seen one film about Pancho Villa that got it right and Villa Rides is definitely one of them. Perhaps the proposed biographical film that Johnny Depp will star in might do Villa some justice.Yul Brynner and Robert Mitchum co-star in Villa Rides with Brynner in the title role. Mitchum plays your typical soldier of fortune although in his case he's a pilot of fortune. He's a pilot of one of those new fangled airplanes and it is through his eyes we see the story of the film unfold.A damaged aircraft delays Mitchum in Mexico after making a delivery and before he knows it, he's hip deep in the revolution that is going on in Mexico. At this point in his career Villa is one of several guerrilla chiefs supporting the new republic and the presidency of the idealistic Francisco Madero played here by Alexander Knox. Madero himself was a strange and fascinating character, one day he might get a biographical film study of his tragic life.The Mexican Revolution of the teen years saw the country give way to anarchy with Villa eventually becoming one of several generalissimos controlling a piece of Mexican turf. As Villa operated in the extreme north of the country it was his bad fortune to later on raid into the USA and get Woodrow Wilson to send our army after him.Here at the beginning Villa though after Mitchum talks his way into not being shot by his forces, Brynner sees the value of Mitchum's airplane as a weapon of war. He puts one of his aides Charles Bronson to ride herd on Mitchum and the two of them don't get along at all.According to Lee Server's book on Mitchum they didn't get along all that well during the filming. Another Mitchum, brother John Mitchum wrote in his memoirs that Bronson was a very reserved sort who guarded his privacy strictly. They apparently had no problem on the set of Bronson's film Breakheart Pass which John Mitchum had a small part.Mitchum and Brynner got along however which was not always the case with Brynner. Yul Brynner was a man of some mystery who liked it that way, he was and could be standoffish with fellow players, but apparently he and Mitchum worked well together in their only joint film.The film was shot in Spain and I have to say the battle sequences were very well staged. They are the best part of Villa Rides.A good, but not a great film. I do have to wonder that when Black Jack Pershing came into Mexico later on after the action of this film concluded, might not Mitchum be in a real jackpot fighting against the American army at that point.

What could have been a great movie by a trio of excellent actors reduces to a travelogue of somebody's desert and some beautiful scenes of an otherwise obsolete WW I airplane. As far as I can gather, it is historically accurate, but for my money, the only redeeming feature is the unbelievably haunting theme, which recurs throughout the film. Essentially, it is this theme that propels the movie along. Some great cinematography, though.Yul Brenner, as Pancho Villa, is terrible miscast: Villa was a short, round faced Mexican taken to wearing serapes and large sombreros. Brenner seems to be recovering from his role in the King and I. Charles Bronson as usual, turns in a solid performance, but is overshadowed by Mitchum and Brenner. The other characters and roles are essentially cardboard cutouts of the stereotypical Mexicans. If it comes on TV, see it if you don't have anything else to do.