Review of Midnight Cowboy (1969) by Chris G — 14 Aug 2010
The film industry changed in 1969 and one of the tides the industry felt was and X-Rated film winning best picture that year- Midnight Cowboy.
The film is basically a fish out of water story. Joe Buck (Jon Voight) travels to New York City in pursuit of his dream ob as a gigolo. He soon finds that it isn't as easy it he thought it was going to be and ends up sharing a condemned room with street wise Ratso Rizzo (a terrific Dustin Hoffman) who is a cripple and a thief.
Some of the sequences in Midnight Cowboy seem dated to the late '60's flower power crusade, but the film itself overcomes the time warps you feel when watching. Hoffman and Voight are excellent with Voight playing the bumpkin Joe Buck as the fresh of the farm rube he is. John Schlesinger delivers a gritty tale of old New York, shattering the concepts of the city seen as a clean utopia in Hollywood productions before it.
To call Midnight Cowboy a buddy picture would not do the film the justice it deserves. They're not really buddies at all. Joe and Ratso are really clinging to each other like a pair of life perservers tied together. They make each other better and they make each other worse.
This review of Midnight Cowboy (1969) was written by Chris G on 14 Aug 2010.
Midnight Cowboy has generally received very positive reviews.
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