Before The Wild Bunch; there was The Professionals; Richard Brooks's marvelous ode to friendship; loyalty; and disillusionment. It may not have the stylistic bravado or fatalistic doom of the legendary Sam Peckinpah film; but Brooks's storytelling is simple and steady and just as insightful. The difference is Brooks is a lot more optimistic. Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster are buddies who have drifted into oblivion after fighting together in the Mexican Revolution. Marvin; the principled loyalist and munitions expert; lost his wife and his heart. Lancaster; the dynamite expert and unprincipled adventurer; keeps losing his pants. They team up with wrangler Robert Ryan and archer Woody Strode to rescue the beguiling Claudia Cardinale; who has been kidnapped by their old revolutionary buddie Jack Palance. So it's back into bloody Mexico they go on a "mission of mercy" for railroad tycoon Ralph Bellamy; who's paying handsomely for the return of his wife.

But nothing is what it seems in this exciting; existential adventure; which was beautifully shot by Conrad Hall. Sarcastic quips; philosophical musings; and heart-rending reversals underlie Brooks's humanistic sentiments. These are tired; world-weary men who somehow find the strength and the will to pull together for the sake of love and commitment. Through it all; Brooks seems to be lamenting a decline in professionalism much deeper than his story. He's decrying Hollywood and the society at large; anticipating Peckinpah's later strategy. --Bill Desowitz