The Lone Ranger (2013)

Hi-yo Silver whatever … Johnny Depp headlines a new version of “The Lone Ranger” so long and eyesore messy, unnecessarily complex, and drunk on flimsy CGI, I don’t have the energy to relive it. Depp is one awkward Tonto, while Armie Hammer is the Ranger, a would-be hero overlooked in his own saga. Done. D

The Last Stand (2013)

Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick “The Last Stand” ends with a car chase through a corn field. Fitting. The whole movie is a retro-80s action flick with Ahnuld taking on the “High Noon” Gary Cooper role: The aging sheriff facing outlaws who have invaded his Western town. Happily, he stands not alone, but with a pack of deputies and locals (including an NRA freak played by Johnny Knoxville). The invader is a drug lord (Eduardo Noriega) who escapes his FBI captors (led by Forrest Whitaker) and speeds in a demon race car toward our hero’s Mexican border town. He shall not pass. Director Kim Jee-woon and we know Arnold is no longer the screen powerhouse he used to be, so the supporting cast is vital for heavy-lifting, none better than Peter Stormare (“Fargo”) as a psycho with an accent like an BBQ-acid-chugging Swedish Chef. The finale blasts old-school over-the-top action while tweaking cowboy cliches, hence that corn field. The politics split with our hero ripping incompetent fed overlords, while stomping ass and shouting huzzahs for all immigrants. B

Django Unchained (2012)

In his near-three-hour blaxploitation spaghetti western homage/ripoff “Django Unchained,” Quentin Tarantino serves up a blood-soaked raw piece of pulp fiction that makes “Inglorious Basterds” and its Nazi history redux seem Disney fluffy. He tackles slavery in the 1850s America and shows it in all its vile, morally offensive code, and does not blink -– a black man is ripped apart by dogs as whites standby cackling, and the “N” word is used as verb, noun, adjective, and an exclamation. I winched, blanched, and shut my eyes at the violence, and the images of African-Americans forced into chains and depraved medieval torture equipment. 

Vulgar and soul-killer upsetting? Yes. On purpose. How can it not be, how can any examination -- even fictional and heightened -- of slavery not make anyone with half a soul cringe, and look away in horror. Shame. But, hell, I say “Gone with the Wind” is far more offensive to the core because it shows slave-ripe America as some kind of utopian Candy Land. It was all good. The South was happy. I hate that film. Tarantino must as well. He fires on all cylinders, his anger at America’s past strong. Conservatives hate this film because it dares show America -– of 150 years ago -- as a moral cesspool no better than Nazi Germany. Leftists such as Spike Lee hate it because they didn't think of this film, cathartic in twisted ways, first. Thank God for Abraham Lincoln, and go see “Lincoln.” These films would make a wild double bill. 

Speaking of Candy Land, Candieland is the name of a Mississippi plantation run by a ruthless land owner (Leonadro DiCaprio) where Django –- a freed slave turned bounty hunter played by Jamie Foxx -– and his killer mentor (Christoph Waltz) seek to free the former’s wife. That’s the gist and final hour of this epic that is bloody brilliant in a dozen ways, a long overdue F.U. to Southern Whites, and their modern GOP apologists who use patriotism as a weapon of hate. 

There’s so much more to the plot, but I would exhaust myself spilling every detail. Cinema master that he is, Tarantino cannot justify the 2 hour 45 minutes running time. He takes a dig at the pre-KKK as the idiot cowards they were and are, but the scene is overlong and kills an otherwise tense encounter between the racists and our heroes. More scenes throughout play overlong or repeat themselves over and over again.

Further, his main characters are not strong enough, nor his plot strands or dialogue. No one here reaches the deep well of Waltz’s Nazi in “Basterds,” or Samuel L. Jackson’s hit man in “Pulp Fiction.” Except for Django’s rebirth as a killer throwing hate and bullets back in the faces of his oppressors, no one else moves an inch forward or backward. We get two over-the-top bloody shoot-outs in the same room split apart by a half-hour in which Tarantino drags his ass around as a slave trader with an Australian accent worse than I could ever mimic. 

In “Basterds,” Tarantino staged a key scene around a dinner and ratcheted the tension so tight, just as my heart was about to explode, his mayhem onscreen exploded. Here, during the big dinner scene, the air lets out, the talk drags on for 20 minutes, then the carnage hits. Then more talk. Then more carnage. Then more talk. Tarantino seems to have written a screenplay in which no idea was bad, and he could not depart with a page. 

So many grand ideas go unrealized. For the first time, I second-guessed Tarantino’s leadership as the Cinema God. See: DiCaprio’s sick twist prince -– and by gosh, he is damn good as a hothead-maniac -– runs a slave gladiator camp. He enjoys watching men of color kill each other in forced do-or-die sport, and his character demands a certain … repayment. Yes, he dies. But that death is cheap, quick, and with no deep wit.

But the real disappointment for me is Kerry Washington as the wife of Django. Great actress. Wonderful. But she is given nothing to do but react -- scream, run, serve, faint, and stand still when a gun is at her head -– after a lengthy buildup that promises a bad ass woman of fire. I wanted to her bash in skulls with the wine picture she is forced to carry, scream and tear apart people. Tarantino bares her body and scars, but not her inner-raging soul, and damn hardy, I know Broomhilda (her name) has one. I hardly believed this character came from the same mind that wrote “Jackie Brown” and “Basterds.” Or the “Kill Bill” series. Tarantino loves women in the best way.

I’m being far too negative. This is not a bad movie. It screams genius, daring, red-faced anger for great lengths. The acting is aces all around (Foxx is deadly cool, and Waltz is clearly relishing every line and twist of his beard), and Samuel L. Jackson re-creates the entire character of the “house slave” as a villain named Stephen. He’s no -– get that name, step n’ fetch it character -– but the true brute force behind Candie’s world. Watch him stand tall at the end.

Tarantino spends so much time making homage to spaghetti-western troupes and bringing in cameos (Johan Hill, Bruce Dern), I wished he focused more on Jackson’s traitor of all traitors, a bent-back man who is a far better power player and con man than Waltz’s bounty hunter. I would have watched another our of Jackson and Foxx going at each other. And sat in fear and awe. Nonetheless, this is near-unshakable film, and Tarantino knows it. Genius? Classic? Must own? No to all three. But unshakable, for sure.

After taking on fantasy Jewish revenge on Hitler, and now putting an African-American in a saddle with guns blasting racist Southerners, one has to wonder where QT will go next: A grindhouse take on Jesus? Or back to gangster-types? Tarantino still remains the most-surprising American filmmaker of our time. Whatever he does next, I’ll be there, eyes wide open. B

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” is setup as the lowest common denominator flick ever made, complete with barbecued beans and farts around a campfire, but that’s the real joke as “Blazing” blazes the false square-jawed Anglo heroes old Hollywood Westerns and their rah-rah-rah Americana propaganda, the very racist founding of our great nation and all the right-wing patriots who shrug off slavery and massacres as not that bad. Brooks pushes every over-the-top, vulgar joke to the point of jaw-dropping delirium. Some work, some don’t. And Brooks ain’t kidding around. The plot is almost beside the point: Circa 1874, Cleavon Little is Black Bart, an African-American railroad worker handpicked as a prank to become sheriff of a small town marked for railroad right-of-way. His sidekick: The Waco Kid, the fastest drunk in the west, played by Gene Wilder. Alex Karras is a thug with an acute philosophy of life, Harvey Korman a bigot, and Madeline Kahn is so f’n tired. Brooks, working from a caustic script co-written by Richard Pryor, opens with a sing-along scene of “Sweet Chariot” as the best put down of white thug bigots ever put to film. Classic. P.S. I know bigots who’ll never “get” this film. A+

Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Yes, there are cowboys and aliens in “Cowboys & Aliens,” and also Native Americans, too, but that would have been one awkward title, right? “Cowboys & Indians & Aliens”? Movie posters and trailers for this western sci-fi mash-up have teased filmgoers for more than a year, luring us in with the wild idea of James Bond and Indiana Jones/Han Solo on horses blasting six-shooters at alien aircraft that would make Will Smith gawk and run back to Bel-Air.

Having now seen the film, I realize that’s all director John Favreau, his army (five! seven! more? I lost count) of screenwriters, and exec producers Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg had. An idea. Not much else. The movie is fun … kind of, a darkly serious and violent western that begins no different than, say, “High Plains Drifter” or “Rio Bravo.” We have the lone silent hero (Daniel Craig) who stumbles into town, gets himself knee deep in horse poop and ends up in jail. Then the bad guys attack and, oh my spoiler, Mr. Silent turns out to be Mr. Savior. You have seen this before, no? Harrison Ford plays a cattle boss named Dolarhyde, and with a name like that, you know he’s not passing out flowers.

So, yes, the aliens cause shit, lasso people up in the air with metallic wires, and fly off. And Craig’s Man with No Name and Ford’s Dolarhyde must pony up and save the day. The Native Americans come in later. I didn’t get any of their names as the characters are played almost painfully stereotypical. See, decades back, Native Americans were portrayed as savages. Ever since “Dances with Wolves,” Native Americans have been made so damn painfully proud and peaceful, one almost forgets they had a right to be pissed and violent – they were being slaughtered left and right by Europeans after all. That whole historic America was founded as a Christian nation thing that Republicans sell. If Jesus were a land-grabbing genocidal maniac.

Favreau dishes out some cool battles as alien aircraft blitzkrieg men on horses, with the latter being blown into bits in the air, and it all ends in an attack the (alien) fort climax, but none of it sticks. I’m 90 minutes past film’s end as I write this and it’s drifting from memory. There’s no kick, satire or mind screwy emotional power that made “District 9” one of the great surprise films of the past five years, nor is there a CGI effect that wows from eyes to the brain to the soul as did “Avatar.” Heck, check out the 1986 classic “Aliens.” That is a space western.

Planned and written by Hollywood committee, the movie seems to just think the very plot pitch of men named Craig and Ford on horses fighting bad-ass E.T.s is enough to win us over. Sorry. Craig is all glare and slow burn. He makes a damn good and dangerous cowboy – he lords over the rest of the cast. Alas, Ford’s town Thug King is a wash. Just as the character is getting good and bloody nasty, evil even, director and writers suddenly fold and make the guy all grand pop mushy, misunderstood and, well, boring. I bet Ford enjoyed playing the early portions.

Olivia Wilde (TV’s “House”) plays one of the few women on screen – seriously, there must have been a lot of gay cowboys out in this West – and must carry a character so bizarrely left-field, I never bought it. No one in the audience did, either. Laughs abounded. Not kind ones. She listlessly has to carry lines such as, “Don’t look into the light,” I immediately thought of that lady in “Poltergeist.” You know the one, the short woman with red hair. She’d have kicked this film up a notch. It does not help that Ms. Wilde appears as if she has returned from a spa. Her skin and hair are flawless. In 1890s desert. That’s more farfetched than gooey aliens killing hapless cowpokes.

For the record, the idea of cowboys shooting it out with aliens isn’t new, comic books were doing it when my father was a teen and a 1994 cheap flick called “Oblivion” have been there done that. That film was a hoot, a silly toss-off that cost less than the catering budget on “Cowboys & Aliens.” I giggled and cheered the thing as I watched it on a video rental. It’s set in an alternate American future-past and had a far more clever and outlandish plot. You’ll cry from laughter.

This isn’t a bad flick, not by far. An upside down riverboat casino in the Western desert is a brilliant set and design piece. Sam Rockwell entertains as a saloon owner named “Doc.” But when I and my wife walk out at the end of a film that has cowboys, aliens, Indians, spaceships, horses, the guy who directed “Iron Man,” James Bond and Indiana Jones slash Han Solo, and all we can talk about it is how cute the heroic dog was, then, buddy, the burnt coffee and crispy cows on screen ain’t the only thing stinking. (P.S. This is “The Godfather” compared to “Wild, Wild West,” a movie that almost killed a genre and Will Smith’s career. How’s that for a wrap around to the lede?) B-

The Proposition (2006)

Nick Cave – a god of soul-wracking rock n’ roll from Down Under – writes a nightmarish 1880s Australian Outback take on “Heart of Darkness” with “The Proposition.” This is a savagely violent film about a redemptive killer named Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) sent on a long journey to kill his older, gang/cult-forming brother (Danny Houston) in order to save his younger sibling (Richard Wilson) from execution. The man who sends Charlie on the journey is a local police captain (Ray Winstone) who is determined to tame the desert land he barely contemplates. The captain’s young wife (Emily Watson) is slowly losing her senses. John Hillcoat’s hit is a brilliant film, a tale of an evil man who has hit bottom and must kill his own blood to find a sliver of redemption. It’s no small note that the Europeans here declare the Aboriginal inhabitants as savages and pulverize the population with ungodly precision. This is a grisly world indeed. A jailhouse whipping of the naïve Burns boy rivals any scene in “The Passion of the Christ.” Pearce's (“L.A. Confidential”) career has never matched his talents, but this film does. A

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

If “The Outlaw Josey Wales” is on TV – unedited – I’m there. This tale of a supposed “outlaw” (a farmer) out for revenge against the Union troops who slaughtered his family stands tall among Clint Eastwood’s many classics. Eastwood plays the seeker of vengeance as he alternately is hunted by Union forces, and tracks them himself. Along the way, Josey befriends a young doomed gunslinger (Sam Bottoms) and – in a hilarious and touching moment -- a Cherokee Indian (Chief Dan George) who’s smarter than anyone on screen. The action, humor and blood throughout are killer, especially a scene where Josey rests as blood-lust Unions cross a nearby river. The scene’s set-up – and the all-knowing cackle of an ancient hick woman – is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes. The long ironic commentary here has America portrayed as a land of lawlessness and savagery, run by European-Christian descendents who killed untold numbers of Native Americans for … their alleged (and of course untrue) lawlessness and savagery. This film is un-PC as hell, and that’s part of its beauty. This is Eastwood as his highest powers, equal to “Unforgiven.” A+

True Grit (1969)

Sometimes the remake is better. Take “True Grit,” the beloved John Wayne Western, with The Duke as U.S. Marshal Rueben “Rooster” J. Coburn, the one-eyed crusty, drunken, quick-draw bounty hunter who is hired by a 14-year-old girl to capture her father’s killer. If I ever saw this version in its entirety before, I can’t recall.

The verdict on the 1969 bag of oats: Eh. No, really, eh. This “Grit” follows the same plot as the 1968 book and 2010 script, and is likewise more interested in character study than who did what to whom. But it has that studio-controlled, scrubbed-clean sheen that kills so many period pieces of older Hollywood epics. Y’know – men ride in the wilderness for days on end, and still sport freshly pressed clean clothes. No dirt to be found. Yeah, it works in a live-action cartoon such as Errol Flynn’s “Robin Hood.” But not here. It’s a glaring fault, as clueless as the studio lighting during the “night” scenes.

As a star, Wayne is always magnetic. But the man always also has just one speed, blow-hard tough guy, and there’s just no texture there. Ever. As the teen, Kim Darby is truly great in body language and voice, but she looks every day of her (then) 20-plus years. As a Texas Ranger, singer Glen Campbell is an embarrassment. He cranks out his lines as if he’s auditioning for the part.

There’s much great humor and some subtext here, apparently taken from Portis’ book, but any human grit or frailty is buried under painfully upbeat music and that aw-shucks squeaky-clean smile optimism that many conservatives (read the “American Spectator” review) point to and say, “See! America was really like that!” And I call it bullshit make-believe, rose-tinted Santa Claus and Peter Pan fantasies.

The 2010 Coens-Jeff Bridges remake is better acted, darker, more wickedly funnier and grittier in every way. It comes closer to the Truth. I bet the Wayne version felt old upon release. Am I un-American? Eh. Original version: C+

Jonah Hex (2010)

Remember when bad comic book movies were ironically enjoyable? “Jonah Hex” –- a comic book western about a once-dead Civil War veteran (Josh Brolin) with half a charred face out to kill the men who slaughtered his family, whilst saving the U.S. of A. –- is all bad. It’s 80 minutes of dirty dusty deadly dull action edited by a Guillotine blade, witless dialogue and random pacing, with at least 20 minutes of repeated scenes and pointless dream sequences colored by the editors of "Highlights." Rumor mills say four directors and several more writers worked on “Hex.” The cracks show. The film is cursed. The idea is fascinating -– “The Outlaw Josey Wales” meets “Phantom of the Opera” meets Lazarus, a Civil War Batman on a horse. The payout is DOA. Brolin's Hex is a Clint Eastwood type who talks like Karl from “Sling Blade.” Meghan Fox plays a whore with such crap acting, it insults whores. The final nail: The most awkward exchange about slavery between a white man and a black man ever put to film. An ugly, nasty disaster. F

True Grit (2010)

I’ve yet to see John Wayne‘s “True Grit.” If I saw it as a child, I have no memory of The Duke playing one-eyed alcoholic U.S. Marshal Rueben “Rooster” J. Coburn, who is hired as a bounty hunter by a 14-year-old to capture her father’s killer. Joel and Ethan Coen are behind this re-adaptation of Charles Portis’ book, and in mostly serious “No Country for Old Men” mode. This western isn’t as bloody violent or brilliant as the 2007 gem, it’s missing a mad anything-can-happen spark, but “Grit” is wildly entertaining. Jeff Bridges (“The Big Lebowski”) plays Coburn, and brilliantly so. Coburn is old and cantankerous. His brain drowned long ago in whiskey, so his speech is slurred and his motor skills awkward. These traits are hilarious and sad. This is more concerned about play of words, language and character than plot, and the Coens rock the proceedings. As the teen employer, Hailee Steinfeld is amazing, forceful and blunt. She not only gets the better of Coburn, but Bridges. Even Matt Damon, as a Texas Ranger, can’t match this teen. Give Steinfeld an Oscar. A-

The Warrior’s Way (2010)

Samurai warrior/cowboy mash-up “The Warrior’s Way” swings wide. Its goals are high: The grandeur and grit of classic 1960s epics by Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa, the mystical vision of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and the violent, other-worldly feel of “300.” Plus slapstick comedy ala Looney Tunes. It fails on every level. “Warrior” is uncomfortably, offensively bad.

Here, a lone samurai warrior (Jang Dong Gun, as blank as a paper lunch bag) cuts down his familial enemies, but spares the life an infant girl. For his act of mercy, he is hunted by his own, and flees to Dust Bowl America. There he finds a derelict circus town ruled by outlaws (led by Danny Houston). If you’ve ever flipped past a Clint Eastwood film, you know what’s next. No cliche is left untouched.

There’s a woman, of course, an Annie Oakley orphan played by Kate Bosworth as if she were channeling Jesse from "Toy Story." The town’s mayor is a black midget (Tony Cox) named 8 Ball, who has an “8” stamped on his head. Racist much? Geoffrey Rush gets top billing and sucks up scenery as the town drunk, a former gunman with a broken heart. He gets in a few laughs.

Director Sngmoo Lee demands laughs for his violence. Bosworth’s cowpoke is tied to a bed for gang rape and the camera zooms in on her spread legs. Later, a pistol is held to the infant’s head. Laughing yet? Houston is at the crux of each scene, wearing a “Phantom of the Opera” mask. As for this CGI world, nothing feels remotely real or even ironically significant. This is a first-draft VFX reel in need of help. The fights are eyesore bad, every one. D-

The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)

The “Apple Dumpling Gang” is the equal of a sick beagle. You can’t not go, “Awww,” and smile. I must have seen this film a dozen times as a child, back when there was a “Disney Sunday Night Movie” on network TV, pre-cable. We have the Disney essentials: A trio of adorable orphans, an exasperated father figure (Bill Bixby), two bumbling thieves (Don Knotts and Tim Conway) who couldn’t steal bark from a tree, and a bad guy (Slim Pickens) so harmless, he’s huggable. The story: Bixby’s all-for-me gambler is hoodwinked into taking custody of the children, who in turn find a massive gold boulder in an abandoned mine. The gold brings much attention, but all the kids want is a dad. There’s a scene where Pickens says he’ll “blow a hole” in somebody “so big, you can throw a mule through it,” and that describes the plot. But this is harmless fun and still entertaining. Disney films from this era had amazing casts, hands down. B+

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

The real star of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" isn't Brad Pitt as the famed gunslinger/robber or Casey Affleck as the troubled young man who killed the outlaw. It's Roger Deakins, the cinematographer who lensed another marvelous release of 2007, "No Country for Old Men," along with recent classics such as "Fargo."

Deakins' camera moves in and out of focus to recreate the haze of memory, and the opening robbery of a night train is a stunning show of action in the dark, and use of backlight and shadow. Stark and seemingly lit naturally throughout, it is hands down the best-looking film of 2007. It's a breathing, moving Americana oil painting.

Luckily, and quite miraculously, the film itself holds up to these images. Directed and written by Andrew Dominik, this is a work of art, and a deep psychological take on not only two different men, but America itself. As the film opens, Frank (Sam Shepard) and Jesse (Pitt) James have recruited a group of men to rob the night train. In the group are two brothers, Charles (Sam Rockwell) and Robert Ford (Affleck), the latter of who is alternately obsessed, jealous and infatuated with Jesse. Frank wants the hyper, dull man gone, but Jesse takes him in. The robbery is a disaster and the James brothers split for good, with Frank skipping town for the South and Jesse remaining nearby for a brief period with his family under an assumed name.

Jesse keeps Robert Ford with him as an aid, despite the 20-year-old's penchant for asking silly questions and awkwardly hanging about. The catch soon comes to a stomach-punching realization: Jesse is dying from old wounds and a variety of late 19th century illnesses at the old age of 34, and he wants to die. Not slowly in bed, but standing up, and with his skull blown open. And he knows Ford, with enough time, pressure and envy of fame, could be his killer/savior.

The film has a leisure 160-minute epic that takes its time telling the story of the Fords and their relationship with Jesse. This film isn't for the itchy, trigger finger viewer who wants an explosion every minute, and a spectacular shoot out to cap the film. It bears down for long minutes on a person as they sit and contemplate life, or slowly interrogate and then later kill a person. As in "Days of Heaven," the camera may sit idly on a field or a house taking in the view. In one long, wonderful sequence, Robert walks about Jesse's home, touching Jesse's clothes, drinking from his water glass, lying in his bed and imagining himself as the famed outlaw. It's an unsettling scene, tinged with sadness. And the slightest bit of homosexuality.

The stark, authoritative narration by Hugh Ross is startling at first, but it settles in to give extra shading to a scene and add an air of authority. This movie is the first in a long time that feels like I've been reading, or hearing, a fleshed out historical novel about real people and real events. That's not to say every scene felt needed -- one subplot involving a lower-rung outlaw/James cousin and his affair with a married woman played as unneeded. But a second viewing, which I hope to do soon, may change that.

The 40s-something Pitt could be seen as miscast as a 34-year-old, but it works. His Jesse if well past his true age, tired and worn out by crime, murder, wounds, fame, illness and the dead-end life he's chosen. The man is simply tired of living. Pitt mines Jesee's rage and sorrow for all his worth; he also makes a laugh around a table tingle with the dread of violence. Affleck, so good as a P.I. in "Gone, Baby, Gone," is spectacular here. He plays Ford as a lost young man, so hen-pecked and marginalized his entire life he can barely function. Affleck's Ford is difficult to watch: twitters, darting/dodging eyes and stammering abounds, but it's a phenomenal and brave performance.

Is Ford a "coward" as the title suggests? At one point, and at the last possible second, he kills one man to save another. It could be heroic, but it plays more as desperate and panicked. His cowardly crown comes not from his traitorous actions, but from his fear to actually live life for himself. He's a 19th century lonely fanboy, without an Internet connection. When Ford does finally capture a low-rent infamous fame, at story's end, it is hollow. As was Jesse's fame in his own end.

Fame and glory is the over-riding theme here, enforced by the sick tour that profiteers use to show off James' rotting corpse on ice. The violence in the movie is realized with an eye toward absolute realism. The sounds of gunshots are the true quick, light pops of the day, not blasting explosions of most films. Bodies fall like sacks when hit, rather than flying back or somersaulting about when shot, and wounds look ugly. Dead bodies seem to reek. Dominik has crafted a fine film, and I can't wait to see what he has in store for us next.

Nick Cave, who co-wrote the brilliant, dark music score, appears as a musician mocking Ford through a bar room ditty in a darkly funny scene. That man is a god, and for all I know might be God. But a seriously Dark One. This is one of 2007's best and smartest films. I must own this film one day. A

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Updated: 21 February 2014

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is the greatest of cinema fun from the late 1960s, and the best buddy comedy action film ever made. Period. Flat out.

Even if I hate, loathe, despise, and cringe at the hippie-dippy piano crap Burt Bacharach music heard in the title song "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." And the dodololedo-shit near the end, you know it sucks.

Commie? Maybe. But I hate the music.

Oh, yes, the film. Worship. In case you're not familiar with this classic tweaking of the western genre, here goes: The Hole in the Wall Gang, led by Butch (Paul Newman) and The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford), robs one too many trains and is pursued by a never-seen gang of lawmen. In their bid to stay alive and re-start their career criminal ways, Butch and Sundance, along with the latter's lover (Katherine Ross of "The Graduate"), head to Bolivia.

Big mistake.

But, watch it and love it.

Mixing standout comedy, solid Western action, and some mild suspense, "Butch" jump-started the Hollywood buddy flick and satirized everything about all of the above before it ever got popular enough to poke fun at.

The film is never better when Newman and Redford not only out fox the law, but also out-smart-ass each other with witty and riotous dialogue. When Butch and Sundance jump off a cliff into a raging river below to escape their captors, it's one of the great stunts of all filmdom, and played off as a quick laugh. Startd by tough-guy Redford's admission that he cannot swim.

The build up to that jump ("What do you mean you can't swim?!?") is comedy/action nirvana, and a send up of tough guy posturing. There's never been a screen duo as cool as these guys. (Ambiguously gay theses abound if the viewer chooses.)

If only for that damn music, this would be classic Top 20 proportions. Top 10. Ugh. "Raindrops." No. Tone deaf bricks. On my head. As is: A-