Certification. PG
Running Time. 1 hour 50 mins
Cast. Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross.
Rating. 62%
Review.
George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid is afforded cinematic immortality simply for the decision to cast Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the same film for the first time, resulting in perhaps the most iconic onscreen duo in the history of the western genre. If not iconic, then certainly, the most enduring.
The film lives and dies by the chemistry of its two leads, and whilst difficult to explain is nonetheless a joy to watch. As Butch Cassidy, Newman exhibits the same assured, smooth-talking charm present in films like The Hustler, Sweet Bird Of Youth and Cool Hand Luke. While the quiet confidence Redford instils in the role of the soft-spoken gunslinger, The Sundance Kid marries so well with Newman. The two screen legends would famously reunite a few years later, again under the direction of George Roy Hill in The Sting.
Audiences of the time were all too happy to embrace the light, irreverent tone of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. But for me, the film is too shallow and superficial, almost glib in places. Burt Bacharach's score is about as far from a traditional western score as humanly imaginable and routinely jars with the action on screen; none more so, than the most famous track, Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head (performed by B.J. Thomas). Equally, an ill-advised, grating, sepia-sheen montage of photographs is used to document Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's passage to Bolivia.
Whilst not a revisionist western, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid was a thoroughly modern entry that reflected a need for the genre to change. Some westerns were even more explicit about the need for change - the revisionist westerns of Robert Altman (McCabe & Mrs Miller), Michael Winner (Lawman) and Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) were all released within 12 months of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.
The film is not without charm. Indeed, so charming in fact, that its inevitable fatalistic conclusion appears completely out of the blue. But those final freeze frames are the perfect metaphor for how firmly Newman and Redford's characters would insert themselves into the fabric of American pop culture for decades to come. For example,
Detective Rosewood: "You know what I keep thinking about? You know the end of Butch Cassidy? Redford and Newman are almost out of ammunition, and the whole Bolivian Army is out in front of this little hut.
Sergeant Taggart: "Billy, I'm gonna make you pay for this."
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