The Weekend Western: The Professionals
A Texas millionaire hires four men to rescue his wife, who’s been kidnapped by Mexican bandits, but all is not as it seems as the soldiers of fortune soon discover. They find themselves with a dilemma - do they complete the mission and collect their money or do they do they stand up for what’s right?
A proto-Wild Bunch? The Dirty Dozen go west? While the film shares its setting (Mexico) and period (early 20th Century) with the Wild Bunch it lacks the depth of character and the “end of an era” feel of Peckinpah’s film. As for The Dirty Dozen, Lee Marvin may have been in charge of the in both films but in The Professionals he’s surrounded by just that - men who know there trade, be in explosives or horses, better than anyone else, rather than condemned men whose only goal is survival.
Richard Brooks provided the script as well as directing the film, and it’s a good one. It may not have the scope of The Wild Bunch but it’s far from a dumb film. Its meditations on the nature of freedom and revolution don’t feel heavy handed and never get in the way of the (plentiful) action. It’s the kind of movie they’ve forgotten how to make these days, where an action movie is measured by how many and how big the explosions are.
