IMDB #173 Review: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Source: Wikipedia

As the Old West declines in mysticism, the two titular gentleman-outlaws bugger off to South America. They find it's everything and nothing like what they expected. Despite the rampant poverty, there are banks everywhere, practically begging for robbery. But, just like America, the local government deploys punitive countermeasures, which occasionally includes guns.

Wait -- backtrack. Butch Cassidy is the happy-go-lucky rogue who (arguably) leads the Hole in the Wall Gang. Remarkably less childlike is the grim Sundance Kid, his crack shot sidekick and faithful mustache-wearer. These best buds hold up trains, blow up safes, and squabble amiably over the same pretty lady. (Cue romantic bicycle ride.) Then their outlaw lifestyle catches up with them, just like the ace lawmen doggedly chasing them all over the great American wastelands.

Thus, at the peak of their careers, these guys decide to retire. Maybe become heroes, "go fight in the Spanish in The War." Instead they hit up New York City, as seen in their sepia-toned vacation slideshow. Fed up with the Big Apple, they book it to dirty impoverished Bolivia, without a peso in their pockets or the slightest grasp of the language. Fortunately, pistol-in-your-face translates neatly.

As usual, the bad (good?) guys are terrible shots. Problems arise when enough bad-shot bad guys congregate in the same area; statistically, they have to hit something. Good thing our good guys don't take themselves too seriously, even though their wacky escapades leave invisible strangers in financial ruin.

The pacing flags in places, but the snappy banter between the diametrically opposed protagonists pins the story together. Their bandito antics seldom seldom cease to entertain, and even better are their crises of conscience. Butch gallivants like a harebrained Don Quixote, the Kid trundles as his weary accommodating Sancho Panza, although unlike Miguel Cervantes they'd probably flunk first-year Spanish.

110 minutes.