Villa Rides

Yul Brynner, unrecognizable with hair and a mustache, is Pancho Villa. He and his right hand man Fierro (Charles Bronson) and their gang are fighting the troops in support of their president Madero (Alexander Knox). Villa’s commanding officer, General Huerta (Herbert Lom), is the villain, wanting glory and the country for himself. Madero is eventually assassinated by Huerta, who seats himself as the leader of Mexico, and Villa marches into Mexico City with 50,000 men.

This film, which is dedicated to Villa, chooses to show some of the more boring aspects of Villa’s life. The Madero assassination and Villa’s march on Mexico City are all hearsay, not shown on camera. Instead, we get the revolution told from gringo gun runner Lee Arnold’s (Robert Mitchum) point of view. Brynner takes a supporting role in Villa’s own biography, as we grapple with such boring issues as Arnold’s love affair with a pretty Mexican girl and his own greed. Much like some of the films released in the 1980’s dealing with South African apartheid from some white guy’s point of view, this film fails because we are supposed to be concerned with how the Mexican Civil War affected an American, not the people who fought it.

Some of the battle sequences are impressive. However, there are some clumsy attempts at humor (Fierro’s meals, Villa’s piloting skills) that do not work. The screenwriters (Robert Towne and Sam Peckinpah?!?) cannot make up their minds about a focusing character to watch, and Kulik’s one note direction does not help. —EfilmCritic.com