***
Disappointingly episodic western loosely based on the outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid). Parts of it work marvelously well -- especially a long sequence during which Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) are tracked by a group of lawmen with almost super-human powers of pursuit -- but that's the problem: it's a piecemeal effort without any overriding theme or story, other than a couple of guys on the run. Katharine Ross plays Sundance's girlfriend who also has a thing for Butch (accounting for the famous bicycle sequence featuring B. J. Thomas singing "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"), but again it leads nowhere. (A later musical interlude, this one featuring a lot of bah-buh-dum lyrics by The Swingtones is much less successful.) Great chemistry between Newman and Redford, however. In all, a could-have-been that later was, in another George Roy Hill film, The Sting.
Disappointingly episodic western loosely based on the outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid). Parts of it work marvelously well -- especially a long sequence during which Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) are tracked by a group of lawmen with almost super-human powers of pursuit -- but that's the problem: it's a piecemeal effort without any overriding theme or story, other than a couple of guys on the run. Katharine Ross plays Sundance's girlfriend who also has a thing for Butch (accounting for the famous bicycle sequence featuring B. J. Thomas singing "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"), but again it leads nowhere. (A later musical interlude, this one featuring a lot of bah-buh-dum lyrics by The Swingtones is much less successful.) Great chemistry between Newman and Redford, however. In all, a could-have-been that later was, in another George Roy Hill film, The Sting.