Rating: 
Summary: "You Just Keep Thinking, Butch...!"
Review: This film truly deserves the description of being a "Classic." Paul Newman and Robert Redford (in the company of Director George Roy Hill and a particularly appealing Katharine Ross), take the history of the bloodthirsty "Hole-in-the-Wall Gang," and turn it into an affectionate cinematic portrayal of male bonding and cultural change. Taking place at the end of the 19th century, Butch and Sundance are, as veteran actor Jeff Corey, playing a sympathetic sheriff and accidental existentialist, snarls, "two-bit outlaws on the dodge!" They spend much of the movie dodging a posse hired to hunt them down and kill them in the wake of a series of amusing train robberies. The location shooting of their escape is breathtakingly beautiful. Ultimately, they have to flee the closing frontier, and end up in Bolivia, which is portrayed as a kind of low-rent version of the Old West. Their trip to South America is an intermezzo, done in sepia tint, focusing on their stay in New York, which, with its (relatively) modern conveniences, underscores how anachronistic their lifestyle has become. Their inability to rob banks in Bolivia without using Spanish-language crib sheets is both hilarious and touching, a kind of paradigm of cultural and technological dislocation. In keeping with its 1969 release date, the film has a strong antiestablishment cant to it: Authority is faceless, unyielding, and, mostly, inept. It is telling that Butch and Sundance kill no one until they "go straight" as payroll guards. Their criminal lifestyle is romanticized as a kind of "On The Road" on horseback. That this doesn't offend the audience is a measure of how fine this movie is. The warmth and humor overcome both the moral relativity of the characters and their sad ending. Newman and Redford are wonderful together as the affable outlaws. Newman's Butch is a charming, flaky visionary who is trying desperately to cling to the past. When confronted with the new alarms and teller's cages at a favorite bank, he dismisses the guard's explanation of, "People kept robbing us" with a wistful, "It's a small price to pay for beauty." As Butch says: "The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles!" In a sense: the Western Outlaw was succeeded by "Public Enemy Number One" when cars succeeded horses, and train and bank robberies became Federal crimes. "Your times is over!," Jeff Corey insists, and he's right. Redford plays Sundance as the stylish straight man, never quite falling prey to Butch's dreams, but never able to dismiss them utterly: "You just keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're best at!" The onscreen chemistry between Newman and Redford is so palpable that although they only made two films together ("The Sting" in 1973 is a modernized version of "Butch & Sundance"), they can easily be considered one of the finest comedy duos ever, anywhere. The dialogue between them is banter between two very good, very old, very comfortable, friends. Maybe there was a script involved, too. "Butch and Sundance" may be short on facts, but it speaks a kind of truth for which facts are not needed.
Rating:
Summary: The film that broke the mold of traditional westerns!
Review: This 1969 film made box office history at the time and was nominated for seven academy awards. The public just loved it and I can well understand why. It broke the mold of the traditional western by being upbeat, lively and whimsical. And the stars, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, cast as bank robbers, had a special chemistry between them with their lighthearted wisecracks throughout. Katherine Ross plays the love interest of both of them and there's a great musical score by Burt Bacharach, most notably, "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" in which Newman and Ross ride around on a bicycle. The story was predictable and at times it seemed a little long, but I found myself smiling throughout and the actors were a pleasure to look at. Even more than the film, though, I thoroughly enjoyed the "add on" which was included on the videotape. Entitled "The Making of 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'", this was 52-minute documentary with the kind of interesting details that really enhanced my appreciation of the film. For example, there's a part in the movie that shows photos of the characters superimposed on old time photos from the 1890s. This is a technique that is relatively simple today by using any one of a number of computer programs. However, in 1969, they had to be actually pasted on. And it was also interesting to see how they do special effects with guns that shoot puffs of smoke. I loved this going behind the scenes.
Rating: 
Summary: Butch and Sundance with 1970's Music
Review: I first saw this film in 1971 in the movie theater when I was a kid. I thought it was great. It's not so great now that I see it as an adult. I think 50% of the problem is the very flower/love/carpenter's like music put in by BJ Thomas with "Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head". Some of the other music throughout the film is very much unbefitting a western. Even though Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns were made in '66 and '67. The music still holds up better than the background music for Butch and Sundance. I would not consider this movie a classic. I think someone could come along and improve upon the theme and make a better film. This film is too much "Hollywood". The film is entertaining, but the music gets in the way. The film has a whole aura of 70's attached to it. Sorry folks.
Rating:
Summary: A TIMELESS WESTERN MASTERPIECE
Review: A great movie, a great western and the inspiration for a variety of buddy films since this one aired in 1969. Wonderfully choreographed and set, including the excellent sepia effect used throughout the film with still photography as well as the general film appearance. The finale is especially enhanced by this effect and leaves the viewer wondering whether Butch and the Kid escaped and returned home or not. The story is known by virtually everyone so I won't repeat it here. Newman and Redford are absolutely masterful in their roles as Butch and Sundance with Kathryn Ross supporting nicely as Etta Place. Strother Martin is as scene-stealer as an American expatriate who runs a mine in Bolivia. He's colorful! Bingo! The DVD is wonderful, including several special features that are as interesting as the film itself. The "making of..." segment includes interviews with the main actors from the early nineties. It's impressive to see Newman, Redford and Ross speaking about what has become a timeless western masterpiece. Douglas McAllister
Rating: 
Summary: Really 4-1/2 stars, top-quality entertainment
Review: This one really takes me back to my teens, when the movie came out and my whole family went to see it. We were enraptured, and we all went home humming "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." I like THAT song sequence in the movie very much. I think it sets up the Butch/Etta relationship nicely and establishes the comfort level of this star-crossed trio. I'm not so sure about the other musical montages (NY/steamship trip to S. America and the Bolivian robberies). The ba-da-da-dums really date the film (hence the reason for taking a half star from an otherwise perfect rating). This movie is incredibly charming, though, in its writing, appearance, and above all, acting. It showcases the first cementing of the Newman-Redford onscreen relationship that was later so effective in "The Sting" (also directed by George Roy Hill). And it's funny and poignant but yet so real in ways that we rarely see in movies today. When Butch finally has to kill someone after all his years of being an outlaw (ironically when he's in a straight job), you feel his gut-wrenching pain and regret. There are so many memorable scenes: the rain of money after the train explosion, "Who are those guys?", the jump from the cliff, the bicycle ride, Strother Martin in a career-best role, the Spanish cheat sheets when robbing the Bolivian bank, the jokes and banter even at the most grim times. The freeze-frame ending is so effective and benevolent toward us, the audience. I have always appreciated the sensitivity of the conclusion. This movie is a treasure and true entertainment--something my kids enjoy as much as my parents. The DVD has lots of interesting extras. The commentary by George Roy Hill and others in the "making of" sequence is intriguing, especially when you consider the budgets of today's movies and what they managed to do with so little back then. The interviews with the main players are great, and it's fun to learn how Redford met Butch's real sister and how he tried to get her to the premiere of the movie. The movie stands alone, but if you've got a player, I'd recommend getting the DVD for the bonus material.
Rating:
Summary: Redford And Newman
Review: This film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman in 1969 is a true classic western. Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid, and Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy are wonderful together. In their first film together, they play the roles of outlaws who make a living robbing trains. After a relentless posse is formed to track them down, Butch and Sundance are constantly on the run eventually flushed to Bolivia where they attempt to continue their wistful ways. The cinematography is breathtaking at times although i thought the scenes from Bolivia were somewhat poor. This box-office hit won two oscars, one by David Goldman for his script writing and the other by Burt Bacarach and Hal David for the movies theme song "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". Katherine Ross also plays the part of Sundances beautiful girlfriend Etta Pace. If you are a Newman and Redford fan this is a must see! A bit of trivia: Newman first offered the part of Sundance to Jack Lemmon who declined.
Rating:
Summary: The Witty Western Classic Finally On DVD
Review: Released in 1969, Butch Cassidy And The Sun Dance Kid became a popular hit, a kind of classy Western parody. It has remained very popular to this day. On DVD with special features, including commentary from the director and actors, it's a great treat for fans of the film who remember seeing it back in '69. Directed by George Roy Hill (who would later direct The Sting) and written by William Goldman of The Princess Bride and Stepford Wives fame. It stars Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, an idealistic, impetuous and daring bad boy whose ambition is to rob banks and make it big in a trail of fortune that extends to South America, specifically Bolivia. Robert Redford plays his sidekick, Sun Dance Kid, who is more realistic and level-headed. This is a Western but at the same time it seems to mock the genre. Butch's character is lively and adventuresome in a blatant way that is not present in Western heroes. The immense use of humor in the film and music that seems inappropriate to a Western makes it a humorous film. I especially laughed at the scenes in which Butch and Sun Dance had trouble translating Spanish into English to get the money they wanted from the hapless villagers. This seemed to come up a number of times and it's especially funny because the Spanish speaking villagers don't quite grasp what is going on. The music score is a bit unusual. There is no heroic sounding themes or Western ballads. Instead we get music that was popular in 1969, such as "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" both the vocals and the instrumental versions. The jazzy, upbeat and fugue-style madrigal type of group singing in "South American Getaway" (which was used in a car commercial recently) as the heroes escape on horseback is also quite unusual. It's a great film that looks beautiful (shot on location in South America) and has great acting, a great script. Everyone loves this film. It's a movie everyone can agree on. Too bad it did'nt win any awards. It certainly deserved some type of recognition. But 1969 was a very big year and in the wake of modern cinema, Midnight Cowboy won the Best Picture Oscar instead.
Rating:
Summary: Legends.
Review: How do you ensure somebody's legacy as a hero? In the good old days, you wrote a book. Nowadays, you make a movie - and if you're lucky and it's really, really successful, you can retrospectively even make legends out of dangerous criminals. Not that that always works, of course. But with two great actors with instant chemistry (Paul Newman and Robert Redford), a script (by William Goldman) bursting with one-liners making the audience bowl over laughing every other minute, without once derailing into slapstick, a director's (George Roy Hill's) ingenious use of the occasion to turn a whole genre on its head, and some of the world's most beautiful locations, filmed by an exceptional cinematographer (Conrad Hall) ... you just may pull it off. Case in point: "Butch and Sundance." While Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) was known as the Old West's Robin Hood for his charm, masterly planning, avoidance of bloodshed - he really did claim he'd never shot anyone - and his stance for settlers' rights vis-a-vis the wealthy cattle barons, Sundance (Henry Longbaugh) had the reputation of a loner; a fast draw repeatedly in and out of prison before even turning twenty-one. After several of their Wild Bunch/Hole in the Wall Gang associates had seen the short end of the stick in various encounters with the law, Butch and Sundance determined things were getting too hot in the West and, unlike the outlaws who not much earlier had stood it out until the end (Billy the Kid, the James Gang and the O.K. Corral gunfighters), decided to head for South America. With a woman named Etta Place, possibly a teacher as portrayed here or, perhaps more likely, a prostitute, they first spent several years farming in Argentina - both had done cattle work before turning to robbery, although in the form of rustling (stealing unbranded cattle) - but eventually reverted to their more profitable, preferred occupation. Most sources believe they died in a 1909 shootout with the Bolivian military in a town named San Vicente; others, however, claim either or both escaped alive, returned to the States under assumed names and died there (Sundance in Casper, WY in 1957 and Cassidy, according to his sister, in Spokane, WA, in 1937). While their decision to leave the West instead of duking it out with the law and the mystery surrounding their deaths would already have made for a great movie, director Hill cleverly used the material for a 180-degree-turn on the Western genre. The opening credits roll next to sepia-tinged silent shots depicting a Hole in the Wall Gang train robbery, followed by the bold claim that "most of what follows is true" - which in itself couldn't be further from the truth. What does follow is a wild ride from the Outlaw Trail to Bolivia ... during which our heroes aren't getting rid of their pursuers, no Western music with guitars and harmonicas accompanies them but Burt Bacharach's multiple-award-winning, deliberately anachronistic, upbeat score (plus "Raindrops Are Falling on My Head" during the most romantic scene - raindrops???), a knife fight is settled by a kick in the groin, and a marshal trying to assemble a posse first meets with a lackluster population, neither willing to bring their own horses and guns nor clamoring to be supplied with such by him, and in short order sees his meeting usurped by a bicycle salesman. Add to that Oscar-winning cinematography, repeatedly using black-and-white lighting techniques even after the film's switch to color (e.g. in Sundance's first visit with Etta), reverse lighting to make daytime shots look like nighttime (during several scenes of the pursuit) and sepia-tinted shots for period feeling (besides the opening, also to sum up the trio's stay in New York), a Bolivian bank robbery with a crib sheet containing "specialized vocabulary" that Butch, contrary to initial claims, doesn't know in Spanish, and an immortalizing freeze-frame ending - and you have one heck of an entertaining movie, shot in some of the West's most spectacular settings and in Mexico (as Bolivia's stand-in). "Butch and Sundance" turned Redford into a megastar - Hill lobbied hard for the then-perceived "playboy"'s casting, and his instincts proved so dead-on that Newman's entourage became worried the movie's expected primary star would be sidelined (a feeling never shared by Newman himself, though, who has been friends with Redford ever since). In a twist worthy of Goldman's Oscar-winning screenplay, fearsome loner Sundance became one of Redford's most popular roles, and his independent film festival's namesake. The movie renewed popular interest in the Outlaw Trail, which Redford himself traveled later, too (chronicled in a fascinating, alas out-of-print book). Its script is littered with memorable one-liners; from both heroes' "Who *are* those guys??" to Butch's comments on the small price to pay for beauty, on Sundance's gun-prowess ("like I've been telling you - over the hill"), on vision, bifocals and Bolivia, on Sundance's asking Etta (Katherine Ross) to accompany them, although if she'll ever "whine or make a nuisance," he'll be "dumping her flat" ("Don't sugarcoat it like that, Kid ... tell her straight!") and his downplaying the final shootout because their archenemy LaForce isn't there; Sundance's "You just keep thinking, Butch," his comments on the secret of his gambling success (prayer), on not being picky about women (followed by a litany of required attributes), on the excessive use of dynamite, and his one weakness ("I can't swim!!"); and finally Strother Martin/mine-owner Percy Garris's deadpan delivery of the Shanghai Rooster song, of "Morons ... I've got morons on my team" and his assertion not to be crazy but merely colorful. The famous freeze-frame ending has repeatedly been cited, both cinematographically (e.g. "Thelma and Louise") and in dialogue (e.g. 1998's "Negotiator"). And although initially almost uniformly panned by critics, the movie won quadruple Oscars and multiple other awards. In true Hollywood fashion, it has made two fearsome outlaws legends forever ... and in the process, also won legendary status itself.
Rating:
Summary: This is not a western
Review: Perhaps the most common misconception about this film is that it is a western. It's not and those who criticize its "flower power" music or non-western sentiments don't understand what this film is really trying to say.
It's actually, more of an anti-western. First of all, it takes place at the turn of the twentieth century. The old west is dead but our two anti-heroes (Butch and Sundance) haven't figured this out. The movie is full of symbolism indicating the changing times (the bicycle, for example). Butch even muses about adapting to the new era when he briefly talks about the two of them enlisting in the army, actually getting real jobs, and buying a ranch. But he always goes back to his old way of thinking in the end. This is shown symbolically when Butch tosses the bicycle aside. Because of this, he is doomed to die like the old west. Butch and Sundance are in pursuit of the old west at the same time the new era is chasing them (in the form of faceless lawmen always at a distance). They finally end up in Bolivia, a backwards land that seems to suit them. But even there, their fate eventually catches up with them.
Rating:
Summary: you want a great movie, you got one
Review: This is by far the best western i have ever seen and one of the best overall films i have seen. Redford and Newman are amazing as the comedic outlaws that have left a mark in the history of westerns. Katherine Ross is delightful as the Sundances' girlfriend and a soulmate to them both.
This film consists of all things that make a good movie it has a wonderful story, strong characters to back it up, and the cast that makes it all work. I only wish movies were still made like this where acting and character strength was the foundation as opposed to special effects which take away from a story. It has all the compelling aspects of film and emotion from action to romance and it even squeezes in a significant amount of humor. A film that everyone,any age, will love.
I love the way Redford and Newman feed lines off one another, their chemistry is amazing. It was the beginning to one of the most charming and humorous hollywood duos. You finish watching the film and you find yourself qouting some of the funniest scenes with newman and redford.
It is a movie that consists of beatiful art direction, and cinematography and the costume designing was in itself superb.
i am twenty four and i love this film, it is a film that will be loved for many years to come. i would recommend it to anyone who wants to see two of the greatest actors ever and one of the best films ever.
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