Plot summary (with spoilers): It's the late 1800's. Butch (overrated and exaggerated by others amount of hotness-Paul Newman) and Sundance (super flaming ginger-hot Robert Redford) are playing a game of poker with Buford "Maddog" Tannen and some other local cowboy ruffians. Sundance bids a lot, and Buford thinks he's bluffing. There are no cards on the river or turn, because the best poker, Texas Hold'em, hasn't been invented yet. Buford calls and Sundance has a Full House and wins the hand. Buford and his men accuse him of cheating, and Butch and Sundance quip back and forth to one another with a practiced and affected nonchalance.
Quip quip quip.
Quip!
Buford reaching down for his gun, and Sundance immediately draws his and fires, shooting Buford's gun itself. Everyone gets all scared because Sundance's reputation as the quickest gun in the west precedes him. They let the boys leave.
They arrive back at their base camp, or whatever, and greet the rest of their men, called The Hole-In-The-Wall Gang. One of the other guy's in the gang has decided to challenge Butch for the leadership role. He challenges him to a knife fight. Butch asks Sundance for any advice. Sundance says to bet on the other guy and at least make some money.
Quip quip quip! Quippy quip-quip!
Before the fight can begin, Butch kicks the dude in the balls, and he goes down. This seems to satisfy everyone involved. All righty. Then Butch tells the gang of his plan to rob a train that's riding through town the next day. Their plan is to rob the train as it's heading to its main stop and then to rob it coming back, thinking no one will suspect they'll rob the same train twice. The first half of the plan works perfectly, save for one train employee who refuses to grant them access to the safe until they blow the door off that particular train car. That night, they celebrate at a local town where Sundance hooks up with his girlfriend Etta. The next morning, Butch takes Etta out for a ride on this new thing he bought called a bicycle, while the anachronistic "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" plays on the soundtrack. Hold up, according to Wiki, the song was made for this movie, so it's not anachronistic at all. Cool, I guess. It's also so far the only music at all we've heard in this movie. Etta tells Butch sometimes she wonders what her life would be like if she were with him instead of with Sundance. Butch tells her there's no difference at all between the characters so it would probably be exactly the same. No, actually he just smiles and then when Sundance comes by, he tells him that he's stealing her away. Sundance just shrugs and says "take her" and walks off. He's kidding, but it's all very weird and of course quippy.
The next day, the gang shows up to rob the train again. The same employee from before refuses to open the car, even though he's still injured from the previous blast. He's apologetic to the guys, and says they're just going to have to blow him up again. The guys don't want to hurt him again, and manage to trick him into opening the door by claiming to have a hostage. They blow up the safe, but Butch has used too much dynamite and the money goes flying everywhere. Various members of the gang all scatter, trying to pick it all up. Suddenly, another train with only one car comes racing up the track. It stops just behind the other train. Butch and Sundance stare, puzzled. The car opens up and about ten riders and horses come spilling out, guns blazing. The Hole-in-the-Wall gang immediately take off, several getting shot and killed instantly.
Sundance says "well, they're pretty rude" or something quippy like that, which seems insensitive at best, and they take off. Two men go one way, while Butch and Sundance go the other.
"How many are following us?"
"All of them."
"All of them? That's not fair!"
Quippy quip quip quip quip! QUIP.
So, this goes on for a while. Butch and Sundance manage to stay about twenty or thirty miles or so ahead of the posse, but thanks to the flat Western landscape, they can always see the posse off in the distance and the posse can always see them. They eventually reach a judge's house, who is also a friend of theirs. They ask the judge for supplies, and the judge agrees but insists they tie him up to make it look good. They then ask to judge to deliver a message asking for leniency if they turn themselves in, but the judge says there's no way that'll happen, because the guys are too famous and they're wanted dead by the law. He warns them that this movie will end up with them dead, no question.
Off in the distance, Butch recognizes the lead member of the posse's white hat, and declares that he's a famous lawman Joe Lofers. Joe is known to work with a famous American Indian, Lord Baltimore (wow, really?) who is known for his excellent tracking abilities. The guys fear the worst. This makes them ratchet up the quipping by a factor of ten. That night, the posse still continues to be able to track the guys while using torches to see. Butch and Sundance ride off. Suddenly, Butch leaps off his horse and onto Sundance's, thinking this will confuse the trackers and at least half of them will follow the other horse. Somehow, this doesn't work. The next day, they reach a steep mountainside and eventually their horse can't climb any higher so they just let him go. PETA would be so pissed! They climb to the top of the mountain and down the other side. About halfway down, they're stuck on a ledge. Down about fifty feet below is a raging river with rocks. The posse is at the top of the mountain, waiting them out. Butch wants to jump, but Sundance wants to fight it out. Eventually Sundance reveals he can't swim. Wah-wah. They jump anyway, and float down the river with highly improbable ease. The jumping part is truly awesome looking, though.
By foot they eventually reach a town where Etta lives. She hugs both the boys and brings them to her home. Etta tells him the posse is funded by the government and won't quit until they're both killed. They decide to all three go to Bolivia together.
Down in Bolivia, they attempt to rob a bank, but are stymied when neither of them speak Spanish and the bankers can't understand them. Hmm. I think a pointed gun and a gesture at the safe would be enough to get the point across. Anyway, cue some wacky scenes of Etta teaching the boys Spanish. They finally learn enough to rob the bank, though Butch must carry a cribsheet.
Burla! Burla burla burla.
They rob some more, and become famous throughout the land as Los Bandidos Yanquis. Everything's fine until Sundance one day sees Lofers lurking about asking people questions. D'oh! Etta assures them Bolivia has no extradition treaty with America, and Lofers has no authority to prosecute them for crimes committed in Bolivia. The only way to hurt them is if he catches them committing a robbery and shoots them in "self defense". They vow to stop robbing people and go straight. They get a job with a man as payroll guards for a mining company. Halfway back, they're robbed by some bandidos, finally getting a taste of their own medicine. They track the bandidos and get the money back, however, after shooting the whole gang dead. This is the first time Butch has ever killed anyone. The quips are subdued, in honor of the dead bandidos.
Lesson is not learned, however, and Butch and Sundance decide not that stealing is wrong, but that they have no business in the "straight" life, so they decide to start robbing again. Etta checks the running time on the movie, sees the writing on the wall, and declares that she's going back to America. Butch and Sundance are disappointed to see the end of plausible-deniability during their threeways.
They rob a mining company and steal a mule, but unbeknownst to them, the mule is branded with the company's logo. A boy recognizes the mule and calls the local sheriff. Or, not calls. Whatever. Contacts. Smoke signals. Whatever people did when face-to-face conversations were still necessary and desirable. Butch and Sundance are pursued by the locals and rush into an abandoned building. They manage to hold them off quite impressively, with Sundance in particular whirling around like a ballet dancer, hitting one after another. Unfortunately, reinforcements from the Bolivian military are brought in so that their forces are overwhelming. Both boys are shot. They lie in the ground, quipping some more about how they should've gone to Australia, and that will be next on the list. Are they just that at peace with dying, or have they completely cracked? Nope, it's the former. They both hold two guns each, use each other to stand, and then shuffle towards the doorway. They race out, firing wildly. The camera freeze-frames, as we hear the shots that bring them down.
Review: And utterly inoffensive and fun movie that can be best described as "cute". Most of the "jokes" didn't really work for me, but they were tossed off so effortlessly by Newman and Redford, that it almost didn't matter that they weren't funny. They just were. They best chunk of the movie was when they were being pursed by the indefatigable posse led by Lefoer. It was pretty awesome seeing them always way off in the distance, relentlessly pursuing. You don't really get to see that sort of thing very often, where the enemy is literally within sight but too far away to actually hurt you. It's pretty wild. And their seemingly super human abilities were also fun. It's rather disappointing that Lefoer wasn't in the final battle at all.
Also interesting, and I'm not sure what to make of it, is the fact that at no point did I get the sense that our leads, the criminals, were "anti-heroes" a la Tony Soprano or Walter White or whatever. They were the heroes, straight out. We where encouraged to root for them whole-heartily, without judgement, despite the fact that they stole. The movie worked hard to make them unbelievably pleasant in every other conceivable way. Kind of a weird thing to do, really. Maybe the 70's had a much stronger anti-authority streak than now? Yeah, I'm guessing that's it. Damn hippies.
And of course, Redford and Newman were great. They really sold the strong bond between the men, and created two very memorable characters, who seem completely unique to the world of the Western, or at least my limited knowledge of it. Their "cool guy" shtick is a bit wearying at times, but mostly works.
Stars: Three and a half out of five. The chemistry between the two men kept it from being a forgettable two star affair.
Next, two biggies; "A Shawshank Redemption" and "Saving Private Ryan". I'm thinking a lot of stars will be doled out.
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