Violent and bloody, but romanticized by the insouciant charm of Newman and Redford...

Rating: 9/10 (20 November 2002)

George Roy Hill's film has its excitements and it claims the fashionable climactic bloodbath, but mostly it's played for fun
It's a highly individual Western; a triumph of style, in fact The style is dominant, intelligent, flowing with charm; the playful teasing, and Newman supplied with a hat on a bike, and the contemporary lyrical Bacharach pop tune It's a style that flowers in the Newman-Redford relationship, which is one of the most affecting in movies
All this gives it the feel and look of fanciful myth carried to a point unusually removed from reality... Backgrounds are sketched rather than etched You are never really moving toward the west in time and place... With belief suspended, feelings are only light1y involved
But it's derring-do at its most flamboyant and given a tangy taste by its essentially modern sense of humor... When Butch and Sundance ride back from relaxation to their Hole-in-the-Wall lair and find they have a mutiny on their handsHarvey Logan (Ted Cassidy) wants to take overButch doesn't quell it with bullets but with a boot up Logan's backside It's that kind of picture
Similarly, when too much dynamite scatters the haul from a rail hold-up, this is a moment for wry, amusing comment And when the posse pursues the pair this is one posse that 'heroes' can't easily shake off It's always there, cleverly made more irksome by long-shot, so that finally only a 'death defying leap' as the circuses say, can separate hunted from hunters.
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is undoubtedly a captivating tour de force Its flavor is preserved from cloying by just the right edge of wistfulness provided by Katharine Ross as the schoolteacher girl-friend who goes along and who suggests the transience of it all
Newman and Redford good-natured fellowship is felt from the opening to the final scene Sundance seems closer to the traditional Western character... He is strong, silent, willing to face confrontations and shoot it out Butch is an atypical outlaw, enormously charming and courteous, has never killed anyone, and tries to avoid showdowns
Throughout the film, Newman is engagingly spontaneous in his expressions, gestures and timing of dialogWhile Sundance is practical, Butch is a hopelessly ridiculous optimist and romantic dreamer While they flee the posse, he continually expresses optimism, but beneath is a child-like need for reassurance Small indications of his self-awareness emerge at other times, undercutting his casual exterior For instance, despite the naturalness of the ménage-à-trois, Butch is really the outsider, and he knows it In the lovely still-photo montage of their New York holiday, Butch watches with wistful longing as they dance, but then smilesaware of his isolation but content in their happiness
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" earned seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture... It won four (Cinematography, Score, Song, and Original Screenplay).