witty one liners, daring train robbery's, adventure and excitement

Rating: 7/10 (2 May 2014)

No other film in the history of sweeping landscape of the western genre conjures up more vivid images of witty one liners, daring train robbery's, adventure and excitement than those elicited when you think about the epitome of the Wild West outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just as the film makes an effort to state at the beginning, the whole story behind the film was based loosely on fact, there were really two train robbing outlaws who migrated to Bolivia in search of a more successful criminal career and they were really called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, although their real names were Robert LeRoy Parker aka Butch Cassidy (played by Paul Newman) and his partner Harry Longabaugh aka the "Sundance Kid" (played by Robert Redford).
The film starts off with a slow sweeping sepia drenched shoot of a small American town, we soon settle on Butch looking longingly out a window to the sepia streets that lay beyond it. The colour grading almost make it feel that we have stepped into a nostalgic snap shot of time that we as well as Butch feel is coming to a slow agonising end. Later on through a poker match we introduced to Sundance, which the scene later seems ironic because it best represents who Sundance is, someone who likes to keep his card close to his chest, and even though on the surface he may hold a indecipherable poker face, just like Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, there is so much more under the surface. While for the first 25 minutes of the film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid may seem like polar opposites, Butch being a loud, obnoxious smooth talker and Sundance the brooding silent one. They actually make a great team, Butch is the brains and Sundance is the brawn or should I say guns of the team; together not a safe on a train anywhere in the world can keep them away from its money, even if it's not down to the most subtle of techniques, which means almost blowing up an entire train with far too much dynamite, they always still get it. But the owner of the train would then say; full me once shame on you, full me twice shame on me and full me three times and I'll hire an almighty relentless gang that will follow you from hell and back again, then twice around the moon and I'm pretty sure Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid could confirm that statement, as they spend days trying to lose the gang, with ever increasing difficulty. Eventually with a whole lot of courage or some would say stupidity, they are soon able to gain enough distance to allow them to unite with Katharine Ross as Etta Place and migrate to Bolivia, taking their thieving habits with them. But once again there old foes find them...
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid went on to win four academy awards, for best cinematography, Best Song for Burt Bacharach and Hal David for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", best score and best screen play, however despite being nominated it lost both best picture and best actor for Paul Newman too Midnight Cowboy and Jon Voight (rightly so). But as good as the award winning score and cinematography was, I felt the best aspect of the film was the was the passion, enthusiasm and talent that both Paul and Robert brought to their respectful roles, and I truly believe that in any other year both of them would have walked home with the statue. I simply loved their camaraderie and sheer respect they had for each other; you could really tell that they respected each other's craft and presence, feeling at times as if they were really brothers in real life, making it such a delightful experience anytime they share the screen together. Katharine's inclusion was ultimately small but crucial, she brought all that tender, vulnerability from The Graduate, but this time she added a whole new layer of steal to the character which I felt showed that she had greatly developed as an actress. It's difficult to review some of the plot elements of the film, due to the fact that is based on a true story, so you don't know what parts are for audience entertainment and what other parts were historical fact. Let's just assume that it was purely fiction, I was annoyed at how the fact they built up the 6 pursues so much, yet you never actually get to see them or see first-hand what makes them so formidable which was highly fascinating. But that was just me being nit picky.
The only thing that came close to the performance of the two leads was the screenplay, rightly ranked #11 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written by The Writers Guild of America. Every scene had a laugh out loud witty patter between the two leads of the or from the minor characters that left your side in stitches. But I do feel that director George Roy Hill and writer William Goldman should have held some of the gags back and opt for a more serious tone to the film, because these were two guys who knew the end was coming, and all they could do was make jokes? But on the whole Butch Cassidy and the Sundance will always going down as probably top 10 greatest westerns films ever, a title I feel that it earned and greatly deserved.