Review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) by Jacob O — 25 Jul 2011

George Roy Hill's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" features in the early minutes of the film a beautifully coloured scene of a card game featuring the titular heroes. Unfortunately, it begins to spiral down from there and no further scene in the film captures the spirit of that short burst of sepia-toned brilliance.

For "Butch Cassidy..."is a more toned-down western, not dirty enough and too cutesy to really be classified in that genre. Although there is some great chemistry between the main leads, played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford, for the year in it was made it could have been far grittier and is spoiled in particular by the sparse, awkward placement of music, especially the incongruent tune of Burt Bacharach's "Raindrops keep falling on my head".