Rent Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Nicely paced and surprisingly enjoyable - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid review by RJ

I wasn't overly looking forward to this one as it occupies similar territory (a pair of sympathetic but doomed outlaws) as Bonnie and Clyde, which I had seen recently and wasn't too keen on. But I really enjoyed this. I have just been reading Roger Ebert's contemporaneous review of the film and was surprised that in his opinion the film lost its way once the 'super-posse' began tracking Butch and Sundance, as this was the exact point that I knew I really liked it. In Ebert's opinion this section was too slow and should have been edited down, but I loved it. I like films that slow down, take their time and actually give you a sense of what the passage of time might feel like for the characters in a particular situation. Some critics took issue with the anachronistic soundtrack as well but I enjoyed that too. I'm not sure to what extent this film was made to cash in on the success of Bonnie and Clyde, but I think it compares very favourably to it. The direction and editing has a lot of nice touches that help to maintain interest and the director (George Roy Hill) seems less in thrall to French New Wave films than Arthur Penn, who directed Bonnie and Clyde. I liked the tone of gentle melancholy, notwithstanding that the film is still asking us to sympathise with criminals.

I have given it 4 stars just because I'm not quite sure it got the ending right. The final scene is probably the closest the film gets to genuinely ripping off Bonnie and Clyde and I think something less obvious and more in keeping with the nostalgic melancholy of the rest of the film could have worked better. Still, a very enjoyable film which I'm glad I made the effort to watch.