I have always heard from my parents and my brother how great this movie was so I was looking forward to watching it, I mean it could be like The Sting but a western. Today I will be reviewing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Robert Redford and Paul "The Dressing" Newman
star in this 1969 film written by William Goldman and Directed by George Roy Hill. Now as I mentioned my mom likes this movie, but apparently "like" is not a strong enough word. My mom had Butch and Sundance posters all over her room as a teen, some of which she even burned the edges of to make them look more western. How embarrassing....
This film is not as groundbreaking as some of the other movies on the AFI Top 100 but it still is a very well beloved American classic and has been referenced in multiple shows and movies like Shanghai Noon, The Simpsons, Futurama, and even The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! This film also did win a few Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Original Song (more on that later), and Best Writing. It was even nominated for three other Academy Awards including Best Picture.
The internet says:
IMDB = 8.2 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes (Critic Rating) = 89%
Rotten Tomatoes (Audience Rating) = 90%
These scores are not very high compared to many of the movies on the Top 100 list but it is still above average.
Now how did I like this movie you ask, well I will tell you. There was not much of the way in characters in this film. It really only followed around Redford and Newman and many other characters didn't have more then a few lines, many of which didn't even have names, though there are some surprising people like Cloris Leachman playing these character. Despite this one of these very minor characters was one of my favorite things of the movie:
He is so colorful. Next we have the "love" interest of the film played by Katharine Ross. She was pointless, I am not sure why she was in this film. She just seemed shoehorned in so that there was a female character in this film. Now we have our two main men. Robert Redford was pretty funny in this film and the character was great. My only problem with him was his mustache. Why did mustaches used to be cool and acceptable? Now mustaches are just a joke or creepy. I just think it is so interesting that today's facial hair style can be tomorrow's molester. Anyways Paul Newman was extremely funny in this movie. Butch was my favorite character despite the fact that he could be a little weird at times. The two of them played of each other so well and were so funny that it really helped make the movie more enjoyable.
There was not to much to this story really. I realized after watching almost and hour and a half of this movie that all I was watching was people do things. Also this is not your typical western, or at least it is a lot different then the westerns that I have seen. I have to mention the good script given that the dialogue between or two main characters was hilarious.This western has comedy and modern music and a certain scene which just struck me as odd. Sometimes the vibe of the movie made me feel the train time-machine from Back to the Future 3 could be making an appearance. Once again I did learn some important life lessons from this movie:
#1: All Mexico has is sweat
#2: There are no rules in a knife fight
#3: Butch would fail Spanish class
#4: Time in Bolivia makes you colorful
Now here we get to some interesting things. First off it felt like the first ten minutes of this movie was in sepia tone for some reason (so if you watch this there is nothing wring with your TV), then we have some bike stunts (why?), and lastly the music is so weird. I think it is funny that the song won an Oscar. The song is not bad at all but it just seemed so out of place in a western
So did Paul Newman start the planking trend?
In conclusion, I really liked this movie though I wish there was more of a story. The comedy was great and the film was very enjoyable despite the parts of the movie (mainly the scene above) which really took me out of it. I give this movie a B.
