Review of Midnight Cowboy (1969) by Jc E — 08 Jan 2011

I ordered some items on Amazon and this video popped up as an item of interest based on my purchases..Hmm I read the plot and was intrigued so I bought the dvd. About 90% of film critics gave it great reviews..I watched it and must say that a hustler's life as depicted in this motion picture is tough, gritty, and overall the film was so depressing...it seems to be a landmark film for 1969 and won best picture of the year..We have a young, good looking and naive Texas man named Joe Buck who is tired of a menial job at a diner and has big dreams of making it big in the city of New York..He wants to be a gigolo for all the rich ladies that live in the city and since he is well-endowed he thinks fame and fortune await in there.

Once in NY he encounters a sleazy and sick guy named Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) who has a physical impairment and coughs a lot.

Ratso throughout the rest of the film is probably as he always was, a man doomed to a life of doing whatever schemes and tricks he can come up with to scrape a living on the street. He is a survivor, although he's only in this position because he refused to work a legitimate low paying job like his father the shoe shiner. Ratso invites Joe Buck to live in his apt that is a hole in the wall, a dirty, run down place without heat in NY during the winter time! Talk about a depressing place..Joe is able to learn from Ratso, but as he finally gets some clue and is able to make a little money on his own, his growth is shown just as much by the way he tries to help out Ratso who can barely walk. He takes on the role of the provider and caretaker as best as he knows how like buying him medicine, trying to get him to stop smoking as he already has a deadly cough, and offering to try to pay for medical attention. The latter never happens because, aside from hustling, the one thing Joe & Ratso have in common is that they are dreamers. While Joe believed New York would be the answer for him, Ratso knew it sucked and dreamed of living easy on the beaches of Florida so both decide to go there. The film is driven by their unlikely alliance, a friendship born of adversity.

Bottom line is that Midnight Cowboy is a movie that destroys myths and demonstrates the difficulty of trying to attain one's dreams. Joe's great misconception of media leads to broken dreams, promises, and hopes when Joe tries to live his version of the American dream. Its very depressing with a sad ending.