One of the Best...

Rating: 10/10 (26 April 2003)

There is a scene in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" that is particularly noteworthy. The ending of the film. It is one of the best endings I have ever seen on film. (Spoilers ahead.) Instead of showing the two men get brutally killed, they freeze-frame the men and we hear gunshots. Techniques like this make "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" such a great film, from the opening shots to the last.
Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) once ruled the west with their Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. They were some of the most successful train and bank robbers in the history of the world. This story chronicles their lives as the law moves in on them and they move to Mexico, where they went straight. Unfortunately, the law still found them, and killed them.
George Roy Hill's adaptation of the story is a novel one indeed. It is helped by William Goldman's smart script that seems to give each character a different trait with full, realistic dialogue, and not any cliched lines. There are no classic western "suicide" lines, where the hero says something very heroic and rushes out, firing his guns rapidly. There are no Clint Eastwood one-liners. There's humor, but not any "Make my day" lines.
That's probably one of the other things that is so great about this film. The humor. There is much tongue-in-cheek, and Redford and Newman toss back a lot of lines that are funny. Not only are the lines funny, but some scenes are, too; including a scene where we first see Sundance Kid's amazing weapon talents.
And let's not forget the song that made Burt Bacharach famous: "Raindrops Fallin' on My Head," which is used in the bicycle riding scene, which has been spoofed uncountable times by hundreds of films.
Newman and Redford give some of the best performances of their careers. I saw Newman's critically-acclaimed "Cool Hand Luke," which was good (I thought it was a bit overrated), but he out-performs that film here.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" isn't exactly a western, but more an adventure. An adventure about two guys who used to rule the west, and died after they tried to go straight. A film that takes a look at the lives of these two men and puts it on film. A great film told with style and wit.
And one of the last lines of the film is a classic.
"You keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at."

5/5 stars -
John Ulmer