Something like "The Hunting Party" wouldn't be for everybody. With all of the slo-mo gunshot wounds, the sight of various victims in agony, and the element of rape rearing its ugly head more than once, some people are going to find it unappealing and unendurable. Still, those who are big fans of "The Wild Bunch", and don't mind stories with a nihilistic feel, should find this to be somewhat interesting.

Oliver Reed (oddly cast, but not bad) plays Frank Calder, an American outlaw whose gang kidnaps Melissa Ruger (Candice Bergen),a young woman married to rancher Brandt Ruger (Gene Hackman). As the story plays out, she actually becomes more attached to Frank, because her relationship with Brandt is not a loving one. Brandt is an extremely determined man, so when he gets wind of Melissas' kidnapping he swings into action, using a revolutionary high powered rifle and his hunting buddies as the rest of his posse.

We'll see that, for all of his flaws, Frank has a sensitive, caring side, and is really a more appealing character than Brandt, who doesn't so much care for his wife as get angry that his property was taken from him and will get "spoiled".

Only some draggy pacing ("The Hunting Party" doesn't need to be quite as long as it is) works against the film. It's a viscerally effective experience that may have the viewer fascinated in spite of themselves. The evolving relationship between outlaw and wife forms the core of the story, and Reed & Bergen play it very well. Hackman is solid in a cold-blooded true force-of-nature role (who lines up his victims as if they're game) and the supporting cast includes such familiar faces as Simon Oakland, Mitch Ryan, L.Q. Jones (in one of his most depraved roles ever),William Watson, and G.D. Spradlin. It's extremely well shot, at wonderful locations throughout the desert of Spain. It actually doesn't miss an opportunity for humour as Reed and Ryan tease the hungry Bergen by eating peaches in front of her, but for the most part it's a *very* sobering film all the way to its ending. The train with the bordello is a rather amusing touch. The music by Riz Ortolani ("Cannibal Holocaust") is absolutely beautiful.

This one doesn't seem to be too well known nowadays, so Western fans who can take a lot of blood and unpleasantness would be well advised to seek it out. You certainly don't come away unaffected after watching this.

Seven out of 10.

The first hurdle to overcome for this viewer had to do with the idea that Melissa Ruger (Candice Bergen) could actually fall for an outlaw thug like Frank Calder (Oliver Reed). Granted, husband Brandt (Gene Hackman) was no prize in the perfect husband sweepstakes, but this was carrying the old Stockholm Syndrome idea just a bit too far. Heck, Melissa even went so far as to say it herself when she found herself with Calder in an intimate moment - "You smell like a horse". Some might even say he looked like one too.

I read with interest some of the other reviewers for this picture how they felt it wasn't realistic that Brandt didn't shoot Calder immediately when he had the chance. The thing is, I had it nailed the first time Ruger backed off with his long rifle; he wanted his revenge up close and personal, preferably with his wife watching as he settled the score. You had to know that was on his mind when he saw Melissa call out for Frank during one of the long distance ambushes.

You know, I had to wonder how completely devoid of common sense Hog Warren (L.Q. Jones) was after the first time he tried to have his way with Melissa. Something should have told him that attempting to rape her later on in the story would not have been a good career move. While that scene was going on, I was picturing Calder breaking into the room and going full bore crazy on old Hog, but it ended when Hog felt that stabbing sensation to his throat. Nice move there, Melissa.

As for Candice Bergen, I thought this was a rather intensely physical role for her to be handling, and the scene that really convinced me of that was when she took that horse spill in the desert with the animal falling almost on top of her. I wondered how the film makers managed that without injury to the actress, it looked kind of dangerous. And it didn't look like a stunt-woman in Miss Bergen's place either.

The biggest head scratcher of all for me though was when Frank Calder became a compassionate killer after shooting his friend Doc (Mitchell Ryan) to put him out of his misery. Throwing away his weapons didn't seem to be the best idea figuring that the merciless Brandt Ruger would keep pursuing him and Melissa. The closing scene hints at the desperation of all three, with Brandt sealing the deal in the middle of nowhere. That he would wind up virtually committing suicide stranded in the desert was a fitting end for the low down skunk.

I wonder if this film doesn't have pretensions to art. Maybe not, but it's evident that someone went to the trouble of thinking up some novel variations on the usual conventions.

We've seen a number of movies before -- the posse or the revenge party pursuing somebody across harsh terrain -- "Tell Them Willie Boy is Here," "Three Godfathers", "Chato's Land," and so on -- but this is the only one I can think of offhand in which each party -- pursued and pursuer -- changes its attitude towards the other.

About two dozen cowboy roughnecks led by Oliver Reed and including the bad L. Q. Jones and the good Mitchell Ryan kidnap the bride of the wealthy Western entrepreneur and big game hunter, Gene Hackman. Hackman hears about this while on a train, after banging a Chinese hooker, and, man, is he mad. He fantasizes the gang will rape Bergan repeatedly, impregnate her, and then sell her back as damaged goods. So he forms a posse of half a dozen friends, arms them with telescopic rifles that will outshoot any existing rifle by twice the range.

Nothing much new there, except that instead of an outraged groom, Hackman has revealed himself as a stark materialist and a rather rough lover. But then Hackman's group gradually find themselves within range of the kidnappers after a long chase through some extremely picturesque mountains, badlands, and desert scrub. The kidnappers have no idea anything is up until a couple of them get shot by rifles too far away to see.

Here's where somebody put some thought into the script. Ordinarily, in an ordinary Western, the convention is that when you are shot, you die. They may shoot your horse instead, but then the horse gets up with an irritated look and trots off unharmed. If you are only wounded, you get away and, if you're a good guy, you recover the use of your gun hand.

Not here. A wound is intensely painful and your buddy can't always pluck out the offending bullet, no matter how much mescal you drink or how hard the praying Padre holds your arms down. If they're mortally wounded the victims just don't flop down and lie there. They twitch a little before they kick off. The horses don't get up if they're hit, although they're definitely horse de combat. (Apologies. The voices make me do it.) They jerk their heads and legs and whinny. The first kidnapper to get shot has his head blown off while taking a dump.

Hackman treats all this as a hunting party. And one or two of his posse smile as they take pot shots, especially G. D. Spradlin. What they don't know is that Bergman has been scared out of her wits after the kidnapping but when she seeks comfort in the arms of the stolid Oliver Reed, he roughly rapes her. Then she falls in love with him. (I said it was artistically ambitious, not that it was politically correct.) The others in Hackman's party realize what's happening and leave. "It's not worth it," shouts Simon Oakland, the least likely cowboy you're ever likely to see, but he's right. Nevertheless, all the gang die except Reed who, along with Bergman, is reduced to trekking through the vastness of the desert, horseless, until they collapse. Their hopes in ruins, they murmur about plum trees and grapes in California, until the shimmering image of an equally horseless Hackman appears. He shoots both of them dead and collapses to wait for death.

Hackman is always fine, either as bad guy or good guy. Oliver Reed, with his hoarse mutter and eternal scowl, is hard to place. Candace Bergen isn't given much opportunity to act. She looks (1) wary, (2) distressed, or under stress, as when being raped, (3) shocked and surprised. You can tell because her mouth opens and she screams, "Oh, oh, oh!" She's so staggeringly beautiful that it hardly matters. Her long loose blond hair is always immaculately brushed and lustrous. What would happen to your hair and mine under those circumstances does not happen to hers. As an actress, she labors under the same disadvantage as some other actresses -- like Kathleen Ross and Jane Fonda. She sounds like she just graduated from some classy school like Sarah Lawrence.

There's a misplaced semi-comic incident involving canned peaches that the musical score, a sprightly banjo, tells us is supposed to be funny, but it's not.

There may be an occasional wince while watching this but it's not a bad film. It's at least interesting all the way through.