Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Awesome outlaw movie, appeared at the time where westerns were truly evolving into the more shooter oriented movies than the classic story of a sheriff or gunslinger who had to save the day, the film encompasses peaceful moments and violent moments and puts them together with great effect. in most westerns nothing in the plot ever evolves usually but the main objective and maybe a few friendships between the good guys. this is a great movie to show the outlaw side of the western genre

Wyoming, early 1900s. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are the leaders of the Hole In The Wall Gang, a band of outlaws. After a train robbery goes wrong the find themselves on the run with a posse hard on their heals. Their solution - escape to Bolivia!Superb movie. While having the appearances of a western it's more than that. Quite funny and many of the themes could have played out in any era. If anything, it captures the end of the old Wild West.Great performances by Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the lead roles. So good was the Newman-Redford combination that, four years later, director George Roy Hill reunited them for another of his movies, The Sting.

This gets one star short of perfection for one minor thing: it is a product of its time with bouncy music montage sequences, really no full plot, and being the epitome of a popcorn picture that is aimed to please, and does. It's the anti-Bonnie and Clyde bandit film, certainly low key in its violence and often tongue in cheek funny. You can't help but love the two stars (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) and root for their characters, two train bandits who manage to charm and influence their victims, charming them in an "Ah shucks" sort of way, and influencing them to follow the two way down south to Bolivia. Accompanying them is prim and proper school marm Katharine Ross who aids them in learning Spanish to get away with a string of clever but comical robberies which doesn't seem to be leading to the ultimate "Sting".There are many classic moments in this practically excellent action comedy, half western and half southern. Newman doing bike tricks for Ross, the two men stranded on a cliff over the Colorado River, and the final shootout, all used in film montages over the years. There's great character roles for many veteran faces, unknown by name (Percy Helton and Jody Gilbert for example), and a few actors in early appearances or roles before they were stars. There may not be raindrops falling on their head, but there will be smiles on your face as you root for these lovable scoundrels. Under the direction of George Roy Hill, this is near perfection.

Released is 1969 and directed by George Roy Hill, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the eponymous outlaws and key members of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang headquartered near Dubois, Wyoming. After robbing one train too many, the head of Union Pacific hires a six-man team of skilled lawmen to apprehend the duo and so they flee to Bolivia with Sundance's lover & schoolteacher, Etta (Katharine Ross). Strother Martin, Ted Cassidy, Jeff Corey and Cloris Leachman are featured in peripheral roles.The gist of the story is historically accurate, with the movie starting in the late 1890s and ending with the outlaws' deaths in November, 1908, which means the picture encompasses about 9-10 years, although it seems more like a couple of years. In any case, this was a state-of-the-art Western when it was released and a huge success at the box office. The production quality, tone and theme are comparable to 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde." It's a very 'modern' Western, arguably the first (although a good case could be made for 1967's "Hombre"), and therefore holds up well today, hardly seeming dated; that is, disregarding "Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head," which plays during an interlude at the end of the first act. In spirit, the movie inspired future great modern Westerns like "The Missouri Breaks" (1976), "The Long Riders" (1980) and "Unforgiven" (1992), all superlative Westerns that don't seem to age as the decades pass.While Redford was already appearing in significant movies, this is the one that shot him to stardom and he went on to star in notable Westerns like "Tell Them Willie Boy is Here" (1969), "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) and the great "The Electric Horseman" (1979), the latter taking place in the modern day, of course. As for Newman, it's hard to believe he's the same actor that starred in the aforementioned "Hombre," as his character couldn't be any more different as Butch Cassidy, a fun-loving, witty train robber (in "Hombre" he's the opposite: a laconic, mirthless white man raised by Apaches).Although the tone is similar to "Bonnie and Clyde," I don't think it's on the level of that film. I also don't understand the gushing it often receives. Yes, it's good, but at the end of the day, it's about two thugs who were on a collision course with premature death due to their own folly. Newman and Redford are entertaining as the pair, but it's hard to sympathize with fools who stubbornly insist on carrying on their idiotic thuggery even though they have the awesome opportunity to start a new life.There are two sequels worth checking out: "Wanted: The Sundance Woman," a 1976 TV movie starring Katherine Ross, which shows what happens to Etta after leaving the duo for America; and, especially, "Blackthorn," a 2011 release starring Sam Shepherd as Butch Cassidy in his old age in Bolivia, which presupposes that he somehow survived the ending of this movie.The film runs 110 minutes and was shot in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The script was written by William Goldman.GRADE: B