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Aguirre: The Wrath of God begins with a screen that tells us that the story takes place in the year 1560. Once Spain had conquered the Inca empire and the Indians had come up with the legend of El Dorado, a man named Gonzalo Pizarro led an expedition of Spanish Adventurers in search of that fabled land of gold and honey. This particular story is taken from the diary of a monk named Gaspar de Carvajal {Del Negro}.

Cut to a fog shrouded mountain and an aerial shot of men walking along a mountain path. The narrator tells us that this is Christmas day in the Andes and the explorers have just happened on the bit of jungle they've been searching for. The camera follows these guys for quite some time as they wander to and fro about the mountains, have the occasional accident and just generally plod along. As they plod, our narrator complains about the Indian slaves; calling them "useless" and, just about the time the synth soundtrack is starting to wear thin, the group finally makes camp.

Once everyone is settled in, Gonzalo announces that he's decided to send Don Pedro Ursua {Ruy Guerra} and his mistress Dona Inez de Atienza {Helena Rojo}, as well as forty other members of the party, downstream on rafts to see if they can discover either hostile Indians or El Dorado. If they're not back in a week the main expedition will have to march back and see if they can find a place inhabited by Christians. Apparently, the trek is beginning to wear on most of those that are trekking. What will happen if the expedition encounters hostile Indians is never quite explained.

Don Lope de Aguirre {Klaus Kinski} will be second in command of the expedition and will be taking his daughter Flores {Cecilia Rivera}. Gonzalo makes it quite clear that both of the women are going despite his better judgment. Gaspar and Don Fernando {Peter Berling} will be going along to represent the priesthood and royalty.

Cut to several rafts headed down river, then to one of the rafts stuck in an eddy. The others send a small party of men across the water to help the stranded men. Unfortunately, they're forced to take the long way 'round rather than risk the same fate. In the middle of the night, we hear shots and, the next morning, the raft across the water is empty aside from dead men. As the rescue party hurries back to the "safe" side of the river they're picked off by Indians hiding in the jungle.

When Don Pedro decides that they need to give the men on the raft a proper burial, an impatient Aguirre takes matters into his own hands and has one of his men "accidentally" blow up the raft with one of the cannon. Rather than deal with Aguirre, Don Pedro, being a practical man, decides that they have bigger problems to worry with and lets the entire incident slide.

When the crew wakes the next morning, they discover that the river has risen and the rafts are gone. Aguirre decides to get uppity at this point and tries to stage a mutiny. He wants to go on and "conquer" with his crew of thirty men. Don Pedro attempts to have him tossed into chains but ends up being shot, along with several of his men, in the ensuing skirmish.

Having pretty well accomplished his mutinous aims, Aguirre's next step is to elect Don Fernando to Emperor of El Dorado, build new rafts and head down the river. Naturally, this is just the beginning of all sorts of troubles: cannibals, wild Indians, blow guns, diehard agnostics and so on. To make matters worse, Aguirre manages to swagger almost inhumanly, become truly drunk on power and to make life truly miserable for his traveling companions along the way.

You could draw a few parallels to Apocalypse Now with this film as well as a few to Master and Commander and films of that sort. The production values aren't quite so high and it's sure that the budget wasn't, but the direction and cinematography are top notch. This has a nice synth soundtrack by Popul Vu that does get a bit tired at first but seems to work a little better as the movie moves along. That will probably depend on your opinion of synthesizer music.

Kinski, of course, plays the homicidal psychopath quite nicely; it's a role he seems to have been born to play. In fact, he seems as if he may just be enjoying himself a little too much at times. The other performances are just what they need to be. Kinski is definitely the star though. This a nice, gritty feel to it and just enough gore to interest fans of that sort of thing. You get a pretty decent story to go along with it as well.