This was a film I had to watch for a screenwriting class I'm taking as part of a low res MA program in Creative Writing. I had to read the script first which took about 3 hours, then watch the film twice. Now I'm supposed to write something about it in my writer's notebook which are my blogs. The first time I watched the film, I had seen it previously some years ago, I kind of enjoyed it. The second time through I really wanted the film to be over after about 40 minutes.
I read Roger Ebert's review and I agree with what he says. The first 40- 45 minutes of the film are really good. I was thinking it would be a great film. Yet, when the chase scenes start it really slows down and gets interminably boring. I don't know how many times they stopped to look at the superposse. But, every time they did, I thought to myself, how long will this last? Can't they do anything else? A shoot out, some sex, something. Just a long drawn out chase scene, with nice shots mind you, but too long without any action.
The second thing that I really bothered me about the film was the Burt Bacharach music. In the first music sequence where Paul Newman rides around on the bicycle with Katherine Ross the music is fine. Not great. Just fine. Yet, by the time they are in Bolivia I was really disliking the music. It was so out of place. It just doesn't work. Burt Bacharach music in a Western it just doesn't fit. I don't know if there are unwritten rules about Westerns, like you can't have contemporary dialogue or music in them, like they do in Butch Cassidy, yet it would be very commendable if they would make some so the music stays out of the picture.
Lastly, I thought some comparisons to Bonnie and Clyde are very obvious which I didn't have a problem with. I enjoyed watching Bonnie and Clyde, especially the ending where they get slaughtered in a hail of bullets. Similar to how this film ends only instead of showing Butch and the Kid get it big time, it goes to freeze frame. I thought this was cool, but it didn't have the impact that the final scene of Bonnie and Clyde did. I suppose you couldn't copy the same thing from that film and make it yours, it would be too obvious for two films that were made so close together. Yet, they could have given the final sequence something more. More violence? More slaughter? Perhaps.
I also didn't like some of montage sequences which made the film harder to sit through a second time. It was merely pretty faces with music and no dialogue. As a writer I really enjoy dialogue. That's one of the things that is driving me away from film. It is pretty faces with some music and images. No writing needed, thus the predicament of a screenwriter.
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