Review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

My initial interest in watching this came from the costars: I figured I couldn't go wrong with Robert Redford and Paul Newman together. But I also watched it because the university movie theater in my new town (Madison, WI) is going to be playing a bunch of classic movies over the next few months, including Sam Peckinpah Westerns. In their online blurb for Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, the movie theater people explicitly contrasted that movie's blood and grit with Butch Cassidy's freeze-frame, doomed-but-heroic ending. They further suggested that anyone who hadn't seen Butch Cassidy should watch it to get an idea of what "ordinary" Westerns were like in 1969, to more properly appreciate the contrast presented by a revisionist Western like The Wild Bunch that came out the same year.

Redford and Newman are charismatic guys, and their onscreen chemistry works perfectly for two guys who'll stick together through anything. My favorite part was the extended chase in the middle of the film, in which Cassidy (Newman) and Sundance (Redford) can't lose a pursuing posse no matter how rough the terrain or how often they try to fake the posse out. I took special notice of how the protagonists repeatedly asked themselves, "Who are these guys?" I think I'll be able to put just such an unrelenting pursuer to excellent use in my D&D game, and get a similar reaction from my players.