History Film / TheWildBunch

* GatlingGood: A Browning machine gun is used by the gang in the final battle.

* ButtMonkey: Angel. The poor guy is put through so much hell and never [[spoiler:gets to exact his revenge on General Mapache.]]

* CoolOldGuy: Freddie Sykes, and perhaps even the Wild Bunch themselves, although they aren't exactly what you might call "old" ("aging" is a better term to use. Except for Angel, they were all played by guys in their 40s or 50s).

* TheDeterminator: Deke. He's SurroundedByIdiots and the Bunch luck out on a couple of occasions, but he still never gives up and manages to track them down in Mexico, even after getting caught on a dynamited bridge. Pike even notes a couple of times that this is Deke's signature trait.

-->'''Tector''': [[DueToTheDead He was a good man, and I think we]] ''[[DueToTheDead oughta]]'' [[DueToTheDead bury him]].

* MOHSScaleOfViolenceHardness: It scores an 8.

* RealityHasNoSubtitles: None of the Spanish is subtitled, and there's a ''lot'' of Spanish spoken once they get to Mexico. A lot of it is basic enough that most people who aren't fluent in Spanish can pick it up, but there are many other [[BilingualBonus Bilingual Bonuses]], like Teresa telling Angel that she's happy now since she became Mapache's mistress, dropping in a PrecisionFStrike in the process.

** The whole film can be seen as Peckinpah as engaging in specific {{Deconstruction}} of Creator/JohnFord's mythic, epic version of the {{Western}}. Many of the landscape shots are very Fordian, and the use of music and festive scenes in-between the dramatic scenes was a favorite Ford touch. Several of the cast members (Creator/WilliamHolden, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson, Strother Martin) had been in Ford's films as well. But the violence and nihilism are in stark contrast to Ford. Peckinpah himself felt that Ford's Westerns were flawed, with too much sentimentalism, and championed Creator/GeorgeStevens as the preeminent Western director.

* SlashedThroat: [[spoiler:Angel is killed quite graphically this way immediately before the final shootout of the movie.]].

* WilhelmScream: In the opening scene, when one of the Bunch takes a shotgun blast to the face.

* LaserGuidedKarma: The bounty hunters that Deke is stuck with end up being killed by the rebels when they ride off to collect their money. This after they'd shown themselves to be extremely psychopathic and trigger happy, not caring who they shot as long as they killed someone (even ''US Army soldiers'') and continually looting the dead.

* KarmaHoudini: Mr. Harrigan, the {{Jerkass}} railroad baron who is indirectly responsible for the massacre at the beginning and yet shows no remorse for all the innocent people killed, more concerned with catching the Bunch. Amazingly, in a film with a body count in double digits, he's not amongst it.

* RealityHasNoSubtitles: None of the Spanish is subtitled, and there's a ''lot'' of Spanish spoken once they get to Mexico. A lot of it is basic enough that most people who aren't fluent in Spanish can pick it up, but there are many other [[BilingualBonus Bilingual Bonuses]], like Teresa telling Angel that she's happy now since she became Mapache's mistress.

* {{Expy}}: Freddie Sykes was based on Creator/WalterHuston's eccentric old prospector from ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre''.

** Lt. Herrera (played by Alfonso Arau) leads the regiment that Mapache sends out to confront the Bunch when they return to Mexico with the guns, and puts on a whole "we're your friends, we mean no harm" act, but Pike sees right through it and successfully intimidates him into retreating.

** Deke, who's hunting down his old friends and is really no better than them morally, but is admirable because of his determination and intelligence.
* AntiVillain: Similarly, Thornton is more overtly sympathetic than the Bunch, despite being the nominal antagonist.

** The whole film can be seen as Peckinpah simultaneously paying tribute to Creator/JohnFord, as well as engaging in {{Deconstruction}} of Ford's mythic, epic version of the {{Western}}. Many of the landscape shots are very Fordian, and the use of music and festive scenes in-between the dramatic scenes was a favorite Ford touch. Several of the cast members (Creator/WilliamHolden, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson, Strother Martin) had been in Ford's films as well. But the violence and nihilism are in stark contrast to Ford.

* ShoutOut: Several to ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre'', especially the character of Sykes and the raucuous laughter at the film's end; the opening scene provides some dark references to ''Film/MyDarlingClementine'' (where Pike helps an old lady across the street, and the temperance union singing "Shall We Gather at the River?"); also, where Mapache's army surrounds the Bunch after the train robbery, resembling a scene from Creator/RobertAldrich's ''Film/VeraCruz''.

* CoolOldGuy: Freddie Sykes, and perhaps even the Wild Bunch themselves, although they aren't exactly what you might call "old" ("aging" is a better term to use).

* CreditsGag: The credits use a freeze frame device where the film stops and the frame is given a sketch effect along with the various credits. At the end, very famously, after Pike says "If they move, kill 'em!", it freezes and the "Directed by Creator/SamPeckinpah" comes up immediately, seemingly implying it's some sort of credo for Peckinpah. That line has even been used as the title of a Peckinpah biography.

Pike Bishop (Creator/WilliamHolden) is the leader of a gang of aging outlaws in the twilight of TheWildWest. At the beginning of the film, they rob a bank (the page quote is uttered here). Pike's former partner Deke Thornton (Ryan) has been hired to capture him, and the robbery ends in a bloody shootout. The surviving members of the gang--Pike, Dutch (Borgnine), the Gorch brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector (Ben Johnson), plus Angel (Jaime Sánchez)--escape to Mexico, where they get mixed up in UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution and accept a deal to procure guns for a corrupt general named Mapache (Emilio Fernández). Meanwhile, Deke, who still admires Pike but has been given an ultimatum to either capture the gang or go to prison, follows them.

Shockingly violent, gorgeously photographed, brutally cynical, it is perhaps the ultimate {{deconstruction}} of TheWestern, and a true classic of 20th Century filmmaking. And it's pretty violent.

Pike Bishop (Creator/WilliamHolden) is the leader of a gang of aging outlaws in the twilight of TheWildWest. At the beginning of the film, they rob a bank (the page quote is uttered here). Pike's former partner Deke Thornton (Ryan) has been hired to capture him, and the robbery ends in a bloody shootout. The surviving members of the gang--Pike, Dutch (Borgnine), the Gorch brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector (Ben Johnson), plus Angel (Jaime Sánchez)--escape to Mexico, where they get mixed up in the Mexican Revolution and accept a deal to procure guns for a corrupt general named Mapache (Emilio Fernández). Meanwhile, Deke, who still admires Pike but has been given an ultimatum to either capture the gang or go to prison, follows them.

* AntiHero: None of the Bunch are what you would call heroes, but we root for them because Mapache is worse in every conceivable fashion.

Pike Bishop (Creator/WilliamHolden) is the leader of a gang of aging outlaws in the twilight of the Wild West. At the beginning of the film, they rob a bank (the page quote is uttered here) and escape to Mexico, from there on, things get violent.

* RunForTheBorder: The gang heads to Mexico after the bank robbery goes to hell and ends up getting involved in Pancho Villa's war for independence.

* ThoseTwoGuys: The Gorch Brothers, and bounty hunters T.C. and Coffer.

** The last one is, at the same time, [[CrowningMomentOfFunny really funny]] and at the same time [[TearJerker heartbreaking]].

* ScreamingWarrior: Lyle's last stand on the gatling gun.

* ShoutingShooter: Tector and Lyle Gorch let the bullets and the war-cries rip at the climax.