For some reason the violence seems over-the-top and gratuitous. Every few minutes someone's getting cut, blasted, burned, dragged, punched...it seems endless.I didn't see that. There is always some violence involved in a revenge plot. The anger of the avenger needs a reason and the audience wants to share his feelings. But you don't even see his parents being killed. And then you see him killing 2 people. By today's standards it's almost a family film.
Well I'd say that most violent films are family films. In 1982 the Indiana Jones film was violent to such an extent that they created the PG-13 rating just to cover that one film. Maybe I have a lower tolerance for violence than the audience of today.
In reference to his parents being killed: I can't think of a more violent description than McQueen verbally repeats twice during the film. I don't think someone would turn a camera and lights onto the scene he describes,(even Michael Bay). His parents aren't just "killed", they're tortured to death in the most sexual, racist, sadistic way that i've ever heard of. The mere sight of the death scene is enough to propel the entire film to its (unsatisfying) ending.
I'm not one of these trolls or haters that competes with posters who adore the film. The film is fascinating to me and contains the finest acting talent of a generation in it. It gives me a gut-wrenching repulsion even to this day. It's not some dusty artifact for which I have some ironic distance.
I just saw the movie for the first time and had to respond to this post! What a statement that most violent films are family films! Ridiculous. Also sure I understand that people have different tolerances and sensibilities with violence but what is said and done in the movie are so tame in comparison to any more modern film that this poster sounds like he is posting 100 years ago! Even though he mentions Michael Bay! Maybe he should have said Tarentino for more credibility. Totally out of touch. Gut-wrenching repulsion are you kidding me? Wow. Yeah you certainly do have a lower tolerance for violence than the audience of today. This is a quite tame revenge western. I also don't see that many posters at all here adoring the film- the lack of posters at all actually confirms my opinion that it's not considered that great a film to chat about. It certainly didn't have any memorable scenes, lines, what have you that a greater film would seem to have.
shareMore than anything else I liked the music and the senery. Having passed through the Owens Valley many times on the way to the high country I can really get a feel for the background. Thought the music went along with that.
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I'm agree with the OP. Of course there are violent scenes in the movie. It's a western! not "The Sound of Music".
Anyway compared with most westerns this one comes as one of the less violent westerns I've ever seen.
I mean John Wayne just in 5 min of some of his most famous westerns kills more people than whole the dudes killed or wounded in this movie!
Max describes finding his mother with all her skin taken off. Would you have wanteds to see that?
If the movie were made today, we'd have seen what Max saw when he went into his house and saw his dead parents.
When Max killed Jesse, he didn't just stab him, he twisted the knife in his gut. Today, we'd see Jesse's guts spill out. We didn't see real Western graphic violence til "The Wild Bunch" which came out in 1969.
Read the Nevada Smith section in the novel The Carpetbaggers. Author Harold Robbins goes into detail about the rape of the mother and how she's skinned alive to make a tobbcco pouch out of her breast skin. Later Max kills one of the murderers by stabbing him, slitting his eye lids open and dropping red ants onto the guy's tied up body and sits and watches the red ants burrow and eat the man alive until he dies. The movie toned it down, to say the least, but for its time it's fairly violent.
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