Review of Midnight Cowboy (1969) by Tony P — 27 Feb 2017

I am struggling to be positive about this film that somehow won the 1969 Best Picture, Director (Brit John Schlesinger) and screenplay.

Perhaps best known for the sing "Everybody's Talkin' at Me' sung by Harry Nilsson.

The film stars Jon Voight as a Texan dishwasher Joe Buck.

The film begins with Buck starting a new life in New York City as a hustler hoping to earn money as a Texan stud for sex.

Being not very successful he meets a streetwise con man Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman).

Ratso is not in the best of physical health and has fantasies of a new life in Miami, Florida.

Meanwhile Buck has flashbacks of a shocking sexual assault on himself and his his girlfriend.

The pair struggle by in their squat until towards the end of the film where the pair take a 31 hour bus journey to a Miami (presumably far cheaper than air travel, and it's 1969?).

I found the film depressing and through periods boring. I don't know what the other films were at those Academy Awards.

Perhaps some of the subject matter was a bit X rated at the time but by modern standards is rather tame.