Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still Great Contemporary-Feeling Western Classic in a Robust DVD Package Heavy on Extras, June 29, 2006
It amazes me how incredibly well this 1969 western has held up after all these years. At once classically structured and satirically executed, director George Roy Hill and screenwriter William Goldman have pulled together a supremely entertaining period picture that caters to contemporary sensibilities to this day. It is to their credit that the film remains true to the characters and never gets too broad during its quickly paced 110-minute running time. The story naturally revolves around the legendary outlaws who robbed banks at the turn of the last century. Their escapades are divided roughly into three sections in the film. The first is the introductory set-up where their opposite yet complementary personalities are established. Leading the motley Hole in the Wall Gang, they ultimately pull off a train robbery with an excess of dynamite. The second part is an extended chase sequence where Butch and Sundance are chased relentlessly by a group of unknown bounty hunters.
The third and final part details their escape to Bolivia where they are determined to go straight but get caught up with local bandits and find their infamous past catching up with them. It seems inconceivable to have anyone other than Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the title roles. As the more established star at the time, Newman is characteristically laconic as Butch. His innate likeability is enhanced by his rascally manner and crack comedy timing. In the more traditional gunslinger role, Redford provides the ideal partner with his flinty manner and unavoidable charisma. In between them is Katharine Ross, fresh from "The Graduate", who plays Etta with sensual élan, though she does not figure in the most critical scenes. Of course, Burt Bacharach's instantly recognizable musical score is here, and while there is an anachronistic feel to such 1960's-sounding pop music over a western, it somehow works because the attitude of the film seems so modern. Even the comically romantic bicycle sequence manages to preserve its buoyancy thanks to the inane but undeniably catchy "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head".
Conrad Hall's vibrant, burnished cinematography deserves special mention as it has been preserved well in the 2006 Ultimate Collector's Edition DVD package. The rest of the two-disc package is robust though bordering on overkill, adding on to the features that were already included in the previous 2000 Special Edition DVD. Retained from that edition is the interesting combination of perspectives provided by Hill, Hall, lyricist Hal David and associate producer Bob Crawford in their joint commentary track. New is separate and equally insightful commentary from Goldman. Another holdover from the previous edition is the forty-minute vintage documentary, "The Making of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid", a still terrific featurette from 1970 with participation from Newman, Goldman, Hill and Redford.
There are three new documentaries - a 2005 retrospective look at the film called "All of What Follows is True: The Making of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"; a fact-check featurette called "The Wild Bunch: The True Tale of Butch & Sundance"; and the somewhat repetitive "History Through the Lens: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid: Outlaws Out of Time", a cumulative effort which combines elements of all the other documentaries into one ninety-minute feature. Lots of great insight is provided on the 1994 interviews with Newman, Redford, Ross, Goldman and Bacharach. A deleted scene is also included with Hill's commentary (since the audio had been lost) - it is a disposable transitional scene where Butch and Sundance are watching newsreel footage of themselves in a Bolivian theater while Etta quietly leaves to the train station. Lastly, there are trailers for eight of Newman's vintage films. This is definitely a robust package for one of the great films of the 1960's.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Great movie - terrible restoration!, June 14, 2008
This disc ranks right up there with one of the worst Blu-ray transfers I own (along with the first Stargate release). It is a shame, as this is a really great and fun movie. It is one of the first westerns I recall that really interspersed humor with drama in an effective way. I thought it tried to be a bit too much or to have something for everyone (the bicycle scene went on a little long for my taste, for example). Audio is fine but the failure to produce a really outstanding video transfer (as was done with Patton recently) will disappoint the many fans of this movie who were eagerly awaiting this release.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
NEEDS REMASTERING. FILM: Wonderful. Transfer: Not so much..., December 2, 2008
The transfer of this film appears to be the same MPEG transfer as the one used for the DVD version. It DOES NOT appear to be a new 1080p 4k re-mastering of the film. This is not to say that it doesn't look much better in Blu-Ray than it does on DVD. But it is not, evidently, a brand new 1080p 4k transfer made expressly for Blu-Ray release. This can cause some problems, depending on your display system and settings. You may have to select a different input palette or profile on your display, or adjust your settings.
If your system is setup to show Blu-Ray films using the "Cinema" and "Movie" profile of your display, which assumes a low contrast, subdued display of a wide range source that takes full advantage of the display's capabilities, then this film may look washed out, have milky blacks and generally be displeasing. You may have to select a "Standard" profile, with a narrower contrast band, higher gamma and so forth, to bring the film back into the range for which it was originally transferred. Doing so with this film yields remarkable results, it suddenly "snaps to" and produces the sort of effect you were after with a Blu-Ray disc.
As happened in past generations of video standards, VHS to LaserDisc, LaserDisc to DVD, standard definition 480i to "high def" 1080i, and now 480p progressive scan DVD to 1080p Blu-Ray, the studios are cutting corners and, with some titles, re-issuing transfers that were "pretty good" for the prior standard on newer media without re-mastering them for the full potential of the newer media.
Many, if not most, of the Blu-Ray discs I have seen have been remastered at the highest levels with all the capability of Blu-Ray in mind. If you have a 1080p display, and have properly adjusted and configured it, then you are probably in video and film heaven.
Sadly, some major film titles are being "shoved out there" with just their old 1080 MPEG transfers, re-issued on the new Blu-Ray format. This appears to be one of them. If you adjust your display properly, for what's on the disc, you will get very good results. But don't expect it to look great with the settings you would use for a properly made, new 4k transfer for Blu-Ray.
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