Excellent adaptation.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Maybe the most entertaining movie ever made. It's violent but it doesn't matter. There's more music in it than "Paint Your Wagon". But it doesn't matter. Western fans like . Lay people love it. I can't explain it. I guess a lot of the credit goes to George Roy Hill. It's a true classic.

This gets one star short of perfection for one minor thing: it is a product of its time with bouncy music montage sequences, really no full plot, and being the epitome of a popcorn picture that is aimed to please, and does. It's the anti-Bonnie and Clyde bandit film, certainly low key in its violence and often tongue in cheek funny. You can't help but love the two stars (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) and root for their characters, two train bandits who manage to charm and influence their victims, charming them in an "Ah shucks" sort of way, and influencing them to follow the two way down south to Bolivia. Accompanying them is prim and proper school marm Katharine Ross who aids them in learning Spanish to get away with a string of clever but comical robberies which doesn't seem to be leading to the ultimate "Sting".There are many classic moments in this practically excellent action comedy, half western and half southern. Newman doing bike tricks for Ross, the two men stranded on a cliff over the Colorado River, and the final shootout, all used in film montages over the years. There's great character roles for many veteran faces, unknown by name (Percy Helton and Jody Gilbert for example), and a few actors in early appearances or roles before they were stars. There may not be raindrops falling on their head, but there will be smiles on your face as you root for these lovable scoundrels. Under the direction of George Roy Hill, this is near perfection.

I was like 15 when this movie came out. Movies were really different in the old days. They took way more time developing a story and characters before the climax started to slowly build. Younger generations are accustomed to the fast-paced stories and action of today's screen writing and cannot endure the slower pace of older movies. I agree, they seem to languish and even stagnate at some places, but what younger generations don't have, is the nostalgic connection of where they were and who they were when they fist viewed this movie. This was a coming-of-age movie for me and it represents way more than just celluloid stretches of what many would qualify as adequate or even mediocre acting, effects, locations, music, never before seen supporting characters and actors. It was a piece of my mid to late teens that contains memories of the life and times in which that movie played. The raw emotion and reverie of the late 1960's will forever be inexorably tied to that movie for me. Nostalgia.

Released is 1969 and directed by George Roy Hill, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the eponymous outlaws and key members of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang headquartered near Dubois, Wyoming. After robbing one train too many, the head of Union Pacific hires a six-man team of skilled lawmen to apprehend the duo and so they flee to Bolivia with Sundance's lover & schoolteacher, Etta (Katharine Ross). Strother Martin, Ted Cassidy, Jeff Corey and Cloris Leachman are featured in peripheral roles.The gist of the story is historically accurate, with the movie starting in the late 1890s and ending with the outlaws' deaths in November, 1908, which means the picture encompasses about 9-10 years, although it seems more like a couple of years. In any case, this was a state-of-the-art Western when it was released and a huge success at the box office. The production quality, tone and theme are comparable to 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde." It's a very 'modern' Western, arguably the first (although a good case could be made for 1967's "Hombre"), and therefore holds up well today, hardly seeming dated; that is, disregarding "Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head," which plays during an interlude at the end of the first act. In spirit, the movie inspired future great modern Westerns like "The Missouri Breaks" (1976), "The Long Riders" (1980) and "Unforgiven" (1992), all superlative Westerns that don't seem to age as the decades pass.While Redford was already appearing in significant movies, this is the one that shot him to stardom and he went on to star in notable Westerns like "Tell Them Willie Boy is Here" (1969), "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) and the great "The Electric Horseman" (1979), the latter taking place in the modern day, of course. As for Newman, it's hard to believe he's the same actor that starred in the aforementioned "Hombre," as his character couldn't be any more different as Butch Cassidy, a fun-loving, witty train robber (in "Hombre" he's the opposite: a laconic, mirthless white man raised by Apaches).Although the tone is similar to "Bonnie and Clyde," I don't think it's on the level of that film. I also don't understand the gushing it often receives. Yes, it's good, but at the end of the day, it's about two thugs who were on a collision course with premature death due to their own folly. Newman and Redford are entertaining as the pair, but it's hard to sympathize with fools who stubbornly insist on carrying on their idiotic thuggery even though they have the awesome opportunity to start a new life.There are two sequels worth checking out: "Wanted: The Sundance Woman," a 1976 TV movie starring Katherine Ross, which shows what happens to Etta after leaving the duo for America; and, especially, "Blackthorn," a 2011 release starring Sam Shepherd as Butch Cassidy in his old age in Bolivia, which presupposes that he somehow survived the ending of this movie.The film runs 110 minutes and was shot in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The script was written by William Goldman.GRADE: B