Our month of movies continued last night when Alyssa and I finished yet another film off of the top 100, #73 "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid" starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. It has a lot of wonderfully comedic parts, including the one pictured, in which Newman's Cassidy convinces Redford's Kid that jumping off of the cliff they are sitting on will help them to elude their chasers. The Sundance Kid is hesitant and explains his hesitance by revealing that he can't swim, to which Butch replies, "Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you!"The film is full of moments showing Sundance's easy going nature and willingness to follow Butch, regardless of the many times Butch leads them astray. The natural chemistry of the two leads makes their camaraderie on screen so easy to believe and inevitably leads to the audience rooting for the outlaws.
A couple facets of the film that were particularly memorable/interesting to me were the fact that Butch had to go to the lawful side of things to kill someone (as a payroll guard for a Bolivian mine), and the steadfastness with which they were pursued by the railroad owner's posse of bad ass lawmen.
Ultimately it is a thoroughly enjoyable film with one huge exception for me, the music! The music by and large was awful, both in its quality and in the way it was used in the film. There are a few ridiculous scenes, including an extended bicycle scene that are just made significantly worse by the choice of music in them. The most frustrating part of these scenes is the films great use of silence in other areas. Anyhow, at this point I'm picking nits so I'll close by saying we loved it!
