| Director | Luis Puenzo |
|---|---|
| Genre | adventure film, drama film |
| Runtime | 116 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $26 million |
| Box office | $3.6 million |
American schoolteacher Harriet Winslow goes to Mexico to work as a governess for the Miranda family and becomes caught up in the Mexican Revolution. The Mexicans transporting her from Chihuahua, secretly soldiers in Pancho Villa's army, use her luggage to smuggle weapons to the servants at the Miranda hacienda. The servants, in turn, aid the attacking revolutionary army of General Tomas Arroyo. During the attack, a sardonic "Old Gringo," American author Ambrose Bierce, joins the fighting on the side of the revolutionaries; he operates a railway switch that sends a railroad flatcar laden with explosives to its target.
After the Miranda hacienda is taken, Winslow becomes romantically attracted, alternating between Bierce and Arroyo. Bierce has come to Mexico to die in anonymity, feeling that his fifty years as a writer have earned him praise only for his style, not for the truth he has tried to convey. Arroyo, by contrast, has returned to the hacienda where he was born. His father was a Miranda who had raped his peasant mother, and later in his youth, Arroyo murdered his father.
While his army enjoys previously unknown luxuries on the war-damaged palatial estate, Arroyo becomes obsessed with his past. Transfixed by childhood memories of his family buried there, he fails to move his army when ordered by Villa. To bring Arroyo to his senses and avert a mutiny among his officers, Bierce burns papers that the illiterate Arroyo considers sacred—documents that supposedly entitle the peasants to the hacienda land. In response, Arroyo shoots Bierce in the back, killing him. Bierce dies in Winslow's arms.
Winslow goes to the U.S. embassy in Mexico to claim Bierce's body and bring it back to the United States. She claims that he was her long-lost father. This puts Villa in a predicament, as a U.S. citizen has been murdered by one of his generals. Wishing to avoid American interference in the revolution, Villa has Winslow sign a statement that her father had joined the revolution and was executed for disobeying orders, as was General Arroyo, who had shot him, and that she witnessed both executions. She signs the statement, is provided with the coffin bearing Bierce's body, and witnesses Arroyo's execution.