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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Hbo Home Video
Salesrank: 29140
Released: May 11, 2004 |
| Our Price: $2.52 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Antonio Banderas (Spy Kids, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) delivers a powerful, larger-than-life performance as the title character of this incredible true story of how Mexican Revolutionary, Pancho Villa, allowed a Hollywood crew to film him in battle, altering the course of film and military history in the process. The adventure gets its start when early movie giants D.W. Griffith (Colm Feore) and Harry Aiken (Jim Broadbent), send a junior executive, Frank Thayer (Eion Bailey) to Mexico to persuade the cash-strapped, publicity-hungry Villa to let them film his revolution. Stepping into the literal crossfire, Thayer's crew risks their lives in the mingling of fiction and reality. After a string of dangerous exploits, narrow escapes and double-crosses worthy of a silent action short, Thayer and Villa make their movie, and "The Life of General Villa" is released in the U.S. to popular acclaim. The film changes the public opinion in Villa's favor and proves that "the lens is mightier than the sword."
DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Audio commentary with writer/executive producer Larry Gelbart
Featurette:Behind the scenes
Description of And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself:
A bizarre footnote from film history comes to life in And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, an ambitious made-for-HBO opus that casts a jaundiced eye on Hollywood and politics. It's based on truth: in 1913, a movie crew went to Mexico to film general Pancho Villa, who was in the middle of leading a revolution in his country. Screenwriter Larry Gelbart and director Bruce Beresford use this mind-boggling situation to measure various Hollywood absurdities, but also to comment on the way showbiz has bent reality to fit convenient, crowd-pleasing expectations. Antonio Banderas gets a full head of steam going as Villa; he's so much better than anybody else in the movie, he underscores the weak performances of the other leads. You get the impression there were so many good anecdotes about this production, the movie can't quite find a focus. Still, for aficionados of movie lore, it's an absorbing look back at truly wild days. --Robert Horton
And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself Reviews:
THE REAL, TRUE PANCHO VILLA?????? 
2008-07-11 -
I read alot of westerns as well as watch western movies, so when I found this DVD on a $5.00 rack what could I lose?
Now, I have read a few books concerning Pancho Villa, finishing one at the moment by Frank O'Rourke entitled THUNDER IN THE SUN, but I do not know much of Pancho Villa, the man of history, so while this movie was very riveting, I cannot speak to much of its historical accuracy. I can, however, speak to its entertainment value and for me it was a very enjoyable movie.
I'll leave the deep, scholarly reviews to others. I will only say that the color and transfer to DVD is very sharp and good, the acting is more than adequate and you not only get information of Villa and the revolution but one also comes away with information of how films may have been constructed shortly after the turn of the 20th century during the silent era.
I don't know that I would want to pay big bucks for this movie, but for my cost and use, this is one whale of a movie. Don't mind at all having it on my shelves of watchable westerns. Better at least check this one out.
Semper Fi.
It meet my needs well 
2007-11-26 - The movie meet my needs well. I was able to show my Spanish class a little of the history of a famous Mexican and allow them some fun in the process.
balderdash, marketing film fiction as pseudo history 
2007-06-01 - This is a B grade movie for HBO that is not even up to that networks standards. Disclaimer at the start {this movie could have happened.......] does not cover the utter nonsense of this film.Yes Pancho Villa did cut a deal with a movie company to shoot his revolution and that is where this movie takes off in a blaze of BS. YES, antonio Banderas is handsome, spanish and swaggers around alot. YES, Pancho Villa was an amazing historical character that fought the repressive totalitarian regiems of Diaz and Huerta for ten turbulent years of the mexican revolution. YES, This film is stupid hollywood pulp made to make money and the same old stuff repeated over and oevver again. Also, why does every film have William Randolph Hearst as the "the bad guy". I'm getting tired of this device and it is also fiction passed off as history. negative stars would be better becasue this is bad for you to watch as it totally mis represents the truth.
THE LOST REELS OF PANCHO VILLA 
2006-05-22 - It is fair to say that we do not remember Noah for his drunkeness but for the Ark that he built to save many....
Pancho Villa was trully guilty of fighting against a corrupt Mexican Dictatorship and attacking Americans who had illegally settled on Mexican soil. It is easy to undermine such histories when making a film that reads like a one page synopsys of a man who struggled to change his country for the better. Antonio Banderas attempt at portraying Pancho Villa as a charismatic, self determined leader comes off well but falls short due to the limitations in script and budget. This film should be seen as an introduction to versed films like "Pancho Villa" or "The lost Reels of Pancho Villa." Only then might the true complexity of his life and struggles be understood.
"learning without wisdom is like a bunch of books on a donkeys back"
-ZNHurtson
Maybe Not History, but Good Fiction
2006-01-15 - When making this kind of historical fiction, too many people expect that it is going to be a documentary; it isn't anything like that. This film is an interesting, ambiguous study of how perceptions can change by being validated by something bigger than they: something like the movies, which in itself is an absurd premise, but something that we live with every day. I wish the characters in the flim were better referenced, as I know D.W. Griffith, Charles Rosher, Christy Cabanne, and others are part of the plot as in real life, but I couldn't tell you who they were in the production, as their attributions went by so fast. Villa as a villain and charismatic leader of the masses has a built-in paradox to it, as does the documentary format in film in any case. It is a pity that the original film doesn't exist any longer (along with 90% of silent film that was made, unfortunately), especially as it was under D.W. Griffith's auspices, when the rest of his oeuvre exists down to the last reel.
