It's a weirdass, nihilistic, absurdist, strangely poetic, existential Mexican Western, set in the 1970s, with Beckettian overtones, and Warren Oates, who should have been immortal.
(I want Warren Oates to exist forever and be in every movie and it frustrates me to no end that he can't).
It is bizarrely funny, extremely violent, insanely fresh, crazy good. Isela Vega is fabulous. The editing is bizarre, continuity non-existent, the cinematography overexposed, but the energy, the wit, the outrageousness, the raw verve, all fabulous.
A whole bunch of people are deeply indebted to Sam Peckinpah, bless his ornery soul.
Quentin Tarantino would not exist without him. And I kept thinking of No Country for Old Men, and wondering if Cormac McCarthy didn't have this movie in mind when he wrote his novel. I bet the Coens did. I also thought of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which this film resembles like a close relative. It's that kind of ironic, misanthropic exploration into human venality, except in this case poor Warren Oates is far more likable than Bogie's character, since he does the deed for love. I'm surprised nobody has wanted to make a remake yet. Perhaps it's too perverse, too wonderfully insane for us wimps of today.
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