Peckinpah completely rewrites John Ford's Western mythology by looking at the passing of the Old West from the point of view of marginalised outlaws rather than law-abiding settlers. While never ignoring their brutality he contrasts their code of loyalty with that of the corrupt railroad magnates. In purely cinematic terms, the film is a savagely beautiful spectacle, Lucien Ballard's superb cinematography complementing Peckinpah's darkly elegiac vision.