Wild Bunch light.

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2014)

Released on the hooves of Sam Peckinpah's blood drenched last gasper The Wild Bunch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a kinder gentler more sanitized for public consumption look at outlaws on the run with the Twentieth Century gaining on them fast. It even has a pop tune video and a jolly Burt Bacharach score to keep things light and mawkish which might spell disaster for a wild west shoot'em up were it not for the legendary first and best pairing of Newman and Redford as Butch and Sundance.
The Hole in the Wall Gang has been making a living robbing trains for awhile when the Pinkerton's begin to intensify their pursuit. With their membership decimated Butch, Sundance and his girlfriend light out east to NY and eventually on to Bolivia in hopes of beginning anew.
The naturalness between the laid back Butch and the wound tight Sundance has the perfect cadence of a friendship partnership developed over time as they play off of each other with the comfortable familiarity of a Tracy Hepburn duo.
For a film featuring protagonists with a bounty on their head Cassidy has an upbeat mood most of the way as director Arthur Hiller keeps things light and polished but nearly sacrifices the picture in favor of entertainment with the intrusive BJ Thomas ditty video and an overlong montage of tintype imagery from Coney Island. It is left up to Conrad Hall's cinematography, especially in low light situations, to supply the film's power and suspense with one outstanding composition after another. With Hall's strong look informing the picture and Newman/Redford clicking like Rogers and Astaire Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is well worth a watch in spite of it's heavy saccharine aftertaste.