A failed bank robbery kills several members and has the survivors pursued by Robery Ryan, who used to run with Holden's gang. With Ryan are several incompetent comic relief bounty hunters, notably Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones. To escape the law, Holden's gang flees to Mexico.
There, they are hired by debauched local despot Emilio Fernandez to rob a U.S. Army train carrying a large cargo of ammunition. But Angel gives a portion of the cache to Mexican rebels who oppose Fernandez. Angel is captured and tortured by Fernandez, and the Wild Bunch has to choose between whether to fight Fernandez or accept his hospitality.
How others will see it. The Wild Bunch was immediately notorious for its violence, which would have been unthinkable onscreen just a few years before. The movie was well received, however, and received two Oscar nominations.
Long listed as "four stars" in movie guide books, it remains highly popular today, often making various AFI lists. At imdb.com, it is in that website's Top 250, with a very high user rating of 8.1. However, there is a sizeable gender gap, and women over 45 only give it 6.3 (out of 10). This is understandable. Besides the extreme violence present, all the female characters are prostitutes.
How I felt about it. The movie is noteworthy for a remarkable body count in its finale. The Wild Bunch commandeer a machine gun and mow down nearly every adult in the village, or so it seems. This scene is the most obvious example of the film's greatest flaw. No, not its violence (a theoretically neutral factor) but its implausibility. There is no way that armed and erratic gringos would be allowed within a hundred yards of Fernandez, especially after one of them has shot a favored prostitute while she is in Fernandez's arms. Not to mention giving Fernandez' own munitions to a rival army.
We also question Holden's nobility. Angel took two ridiculous risks that threatened the gang, and he paid for it. Holden and Borgnine would have accepted this instead of assassinating Fernandez, with whom they could form a lucrative partnership. Further, it is a Rambo-style fantasy peculiar to Americans and the British that four Gringos can, by themselves, wipe out an entire warlord's army.
Also, cackling bounty hunters Oates and Johnson are caricatures, and, we must add, not all Mexican women are prostitutes. Not even in 1914.