Review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) by Andrew M — 02 Nov 2016

At the tail end of the 60s, with the Western having had a nice decade long run, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid comes along and offers up a flawed but ultimately enjoyable film that shakes up many of the tropes of the genre.

Rather than going for a gritty tone in line with many other Westerns, William Goldman's script focuses on character interactions and a surprising amount of comedy between Cassidy and Sundance. The script and the direction George Roy Hill takes this story in manages to keep a mostly lighthearted tone while still reminding everyone that the two leads were criminals who made a living robbing trains and banks.

What really sells this tone is the pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford as Cassidy and Sundance, who share impeccable chemistry and are the true life force of the film. Of course, the more familiar aspects of a Western are here as well: the sweeping cinematography of Conrad Hall beautifully captures the expanses of the Western U.

S. and Bolivia (actually Mexico during filming), and the production design of each town and each interior feels authentic in a way they should. It begins to slog in the middle, as the film starts to lose some focus and jumps from scene to scene without proper transitions that make it feel natural, and the strange addition of montages with no dialogue (including one with just still frames) are oddly jarring and kill any pace the film may have set up.

The Newman-Redford pairing truly makes up for all of these flaws though: their camaraderie alone is enough to make this one worth a watch.