Review of Midnight Cowboy (1969) by Matt P — 06 Feb 2011

What a great movie with sentimental value--a true classic. Honestly, they just don't make movies like this any more. "Midnight Cowboy" is one of the best of the 1960s, that wrapped up the generation quite well.

It captured the stereotype and myth of the 60s, and put them all into one extreme week, seen through the life of a naive male prostitute(John Voight), as he tries to get work with his sick, gimpy friend, Ratso Rizzo(Dustin Hoffman).

In a sense, the film is more about a lost and confused soul, looking to belong. Joe Buck(Voight) is a fish out of water. All the way from Texas, he arrives in New York, which is the perfect land for him to get sadly swept in.

At first, you might thing the premise sounds a little goofy. I know I did. who could sympathize with a conceded cowboy "stud?" But there are plenty of flashbacks to designate Joe's horrid past, and why he came to be the way he is.

He knows he's done some bad things in the pat, and maybe not had the best upbringing, but he is proud of who he is. This to me was a powerful moral of the story. No matter what your circumstances are, and what you are dealt, just be happy that you are yourself.

Rizzo(Hoffman), is the complete opposite of that notion, which is why these two leads worked so well together. Rizzo hates New York City, and is a small, pathetic sort of character. He's never clean, he's always smoking, and has this irritating-to watch-like limp, that looks all to convincing by Dustin Hoffman.

He truly was a great character, which is strange because he didn't get an Oscar for his role, when he very well SHOULD HAVE. The movie itself centers around their strange and bizarre adventures in NYC, including attending a Hippy-hell rebellion party where they get trashed, and getting thrown out of a 5-Star hotel full of beautiful women.

Ultimately in the end, neither of them get what they want, which is sort of sad. But it's one of those cases where what they were doing the whole time, was helping each other. Joe, a goofball looking to belong, and Rizzo, a depressed loser who nobody cares about.

It's a rather obvious moral, but you don't surprisingly catch it until the way end, which is sad. I won't give away anything else from there, but you can make the inferences yourself. Don't take "Midnight Cowboy" as a typical "stranded" New York kind of a movie, there's soul to it.

It has all the druggy essence of the 1960s that make it a Rated X film, and an important one, and also a powerful Best Picture win. Don't be fooled by the premise, the story is ripping, and it's the two leading performances, accompanied by the quick editing and country score that make it good.

That, and a good script which John Schlesinger thankfully won for.