Villa Rides

I hate to give this movie a bad rap, but I got to "tell it like it is!"
It's baaadddd! Worst than bad! Almost sterile, unable with 3 great movie stars to bare anything fruitful! I was totally disappionted.
Its got great color, great dvd transfer, great scenery and locations, but it just falls completly flat.

It is a thin remake of Viva Villa from 1934. Which with all it's hokem is really entertaining.
Buy this if you're a die hard fan of Mitchum, Bronson or Yul!

VILLA RIDES turns out to be something of a big disappointment! And even though Sam Peckinpah had a hand in the screenplay - along with Robert Towne - it still emerges as a leadenly written movie dryly directed by the undistinguished Buzz Kulik.
Firstly, Yul Brynner in the title role is wrong for the part! He is not
charismatic enough to play the great mexican revolutionary and comes across as being downright dull. His one note performance lacks the buoyancy a Gilbert Roland or an Anthony Quinn could have brought to the part. Brynner simply looks like a Russian aristocrat dressed up like a mexican bandit who is in the middle of the mexican revolution instead of the russian one.
Robert Mitchum - who has second billing - is totally wasted in the picture! His part as a biplane flyng ace lobbing home-made bombs from the air in the cause of the revolution is very poorly written and could have been played by any minor star. Mitch hasn't a decent line in the entire movie and brings to one's mind his other mexican revolution picture the far superior "Bandido" (1956) which unfortunately no one seems to have any interest in releasing on DVD at all.
Besides lacking any kind of style the movie also lacks the presence of a
major female star! There is starlet Grazia Buccella as the young mexican girl who gives Mitchum the glad eye but her casting is merely perfunctory. Someone like Claudia Cardinale or Jean Peters might have added a couple of badly needed notches to the faltering story line.

There are a couple of good action scenes in the movie but a couple of good action scenes does not a movie make and the less than perfect Panavision picture quality plus the over repetitive Maurice Jarre theme tune doesn't help matters.

As is Paramount's wont there are no extras - not even a trailer!
Yes, a disappointing movie and presentation that could have been and should have been a whole lot better!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THIS IS A GREAT MOVIE. FINALLY IT WILL BE RELEASED IN DVD. I HAVE A COPY ON VHS BUT IT'S WORN OUT FROM SEEING IT SO MUCH. GREAT, GREAT, GREAT MOVIE. ACTION, COMEDY, IT HAS IT ALL!!!

A gritty tale of Pancho and his minions. The film does stray somewhat from the facts. Charles Bronson gives a great portrail of Rodolfo Fierro. I think it is his best role in a western.

I have been waiting for this film for the last 20 years. I own an old vhs copy taped from tv. This is one of my top ten films. Highly recommended!!!! Thank you for releasing it!

Kam