Unpleasant Peasant

Rating: 1/10 (14 September 2008)

Okay, I'll give Rod Seiger credit for portraying a Mexican bandito with some conviction. That's it. This celebration of cruel violence, massacres, and interminable firing squads was weird and ultimately stupid. It was sort of a "buddy" film, where mass murderers Coburn and Steiger carried off a sort of romance by way of flashing their toothy smiles at each other to register approval or admiration.
Particularly disturbing was when Steiger, as a stinking, fat, slobby, unwashed, disgusting bandito decides to rape a well-dressed society woman. First, he exposes himself as he approaches her, and we are expected to believe that she was impressed and actually wants to be raped. Yes, this was quite disturbing. Steiger's character also had a young son, about eight years old, who was a natural killer and was not opposed to shooting unarmed people. Thus, when he himself was gunned down, we were supposed to feel pity. I didn't.
It was also stupid when Coburn's character opened up his trench coat to reveal sticks of dynamite and vials of nitro glycerin; one drop of which would explode upon hitting the ground, causing a large crater. This was intended to discourage the banditos from shooting him. He handled the nitro so carefully; yet he carried the vials while speeding along on a motorcycle over a bumpy, pothole-infested mountain trail.
Also annoying was the out-of-place "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" style score, which kept popping up at inappropriate times, like during a massacre. The vocal, "Shom-shom-shom" was very weird.James Coburn, as usual, offered little more than horselike teeth, flashed liberally. Rod Steiger was the cute mass murderer. Yuck.