One Paragraph Movie Review: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Sixty-sixth film: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a film I thought I’d seen until I watched it and found it almost entirely unfamiliar. It goes without saying that Robert Redford and Paul Newman are extremely pleasing to look at, and that Burt Bacharach is a whimsical composer choice for a Western. And it’s definitely a Western, with its sweeping dry landscapes, rock-crunching boots, shoot-em-up pew pew scenes and saloon-bar whorehouses. The thing that struck me though, is how much it feels like other, unexpected movies. The posse pursuit has the relentlessness of Terminator 2, the final showdown lawman overkill smacks of The Blues Brothers, and the closing scene smells almost identical to Gallipoli’s. I really enjoyed it, and I really want a pair of cowboy boots. Three and a half weird platonic bicycle threesomes out of five.