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The Professionals (1966)

Rate: 6
Viewed: 12/14

Profs
12/14: Although predated by several years, The Wild Bunch is everything that The Professionals is not.

Burt Lancaster tries hard to make the styleless film special. Lee Marvin is at bottom form as he was drunk during the production. The tiresome veteran actor Robert Ryan is miscast and therefore doesn't belong. Woody Strode hardly does anything but flexes his muscles and shoots arrows. Claudia Cardinale stinks it up whenever she opens her mouth on top of her atrocious acting. Jack Palance does what Charles Bronson did all the time, so what's new?

The ending isn't done well because it fails to get the point across. In The Wild Bunch, it's the adage: "Honor among thieves." When Dolworth's advice is routinely ignored by Fardan despite his lifetime of experience dealing with such matters, they both lose credibility. The characters in other film knew what they were doing and could sense the imminent danger by intuition.

Some scenes come off as corny. A good example is when Burt Lancaster held the dying large-breasted Mexican in his arms despite her adding nothing to the story. She's merely used for sex appeal. Meanwhile, it's not possible for the horses ridden by Mexicans to trot quickly for a long time without collapsing to the ground. If there's anything positive to say, the pace is better than any of Sergio Leone's so-called Spaghetti Westerns.

All in all, The Wild Bunch is legendary while The Professionals is a joke.