There's a lot he doesn't want to see.] He's pained by memories of better times. ["That was a classy place," he reminisces about one of his former gigs. "Classy people came in there."] When his girlfriend (played by the luscious Isela Vega) - a madonna/whore in the classic Peckinpah mold - gives him crabs, he tries to kill them by pouring booze into his boxer shorts. ["Change the sheets, darling," he grumbles.] The viewer will *not* want to identify with him. But identify with him we must. Because his world is our world - one of hideous buildings, despoiled nature, soulless "entertainment", and ruthless killers cum "businessmen". [One of whom disgustedly entices Benny towards his fateful assignment by observing - as any of our bosses might say to get us to work at a job we hate, "You want money, don't you? Money you can spend?"] And that tragic flaw of his - choosing money (which is death) over love (which is life) - is our flaw as well. The portrayal of the relationship between the fugitive lovers is also an act of ballsy iconoclasm on Peckinpah's part. It's one thing to posit a pure, eternal, "Born to Run" love against the encroaching doom - like "Romeo and Juliet". It's another to disgracefully admit that our nobler impulses are inevitably tainted and undermined by our sordid natures. Bennie and Elita love each other as best they can - which is never quite good enough - and it breaks my heart