Redford and Newman - Partners in Crime

I’ve always had a hard time enjoying movies that try to make me root for criminals. The Godfather is an extreme example because it makes heroes out of such basically despicable people. I recognize that it’s a great movie in a number of ways, but when it really comes down to it, I think all the main characters ought to be in prison – or worse. They shouldn’t be held up as any kind of example.

I have similar feelings about heist movies. My time working as a bank teller made me particularly sensitive to movies about bank robbers. I was never robbed, but I know people who were. I was involved in one situation that turned out to be benign, but for about 20 minutes, we weren’t sure what was going to happen. It was traumatizing. Now when I see depictions of bank robberies, I always think about how it’s going to have a lasting effect on the innocent bank employees, even if they don’t get physically harmed.

Now, I’m not completely humorless about this. I don’t judge people who like heist movies or mobster movies. I understand that in some cases these movies make a genuine effort to show the desperate circumstances that led their characters to the choices they make. Criminals deserve some empathy too. But I share this as an introduction because it informed how I approached watching the two films I’ll be writing about in this post – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973).

Both films were directed by George Roy Hill and star Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Sometime in the last five years I tried to watch The Sting on some streaming service, but something about the combination of the ragtime music, the stylized title cards and the knowledge that the film was about a couple crooks, turned me off. I think I turned the movie off within the first five minutes.

Then a few weeks ago I decided to watch Butch Cassidy. For whatever reason, I was more receptive to the unusual style choices, like the sepia-toned introduction and the mid-film music video for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” Once I was past those fairly superficial hang-ups, I was able to start to enjoy the underlying film.

For its time, the plot of the movie subverted expectations of what a Western picture should be. Audiences expected larger-than-life heroes like John Wayne and Randolph Scott, saving towns from outlaws and Indians. Butch and Sundance are outlaws. And they’re not even very good at being outlaws. To modern audiences, that’s not so unusual. There have been lots of movies about loveable losers. But at the time, it was more novel.

The reason the movie still holds up is the screen chemistry between Redford and Newman. The opening scene establishes Newman’s Cassidy as the smooth-talking, easy-going leader and Redford’s Sundance as the quiet, menacing, sharp-shooting enforcer. (Redford’s performance in the poker scene where he is accused of cheating is genuinely frightening.) Throughout the movie they are pursued from one bad idea to the next, including the famous absurd cliff-diving scene. They finally end up in Bolivia, and I won’t spoil the ending, but it ends the only way it could, really.

After enjoying the movie, at least more than I expected to, I decided to give The Sting another shot. I’m glad I did. The Sting is the better movie of the two. It’s a real credit to Redford and Newman’s acting skills that they were able to switch roles in many ways for this movie. Newman’s Gondorff is the seasoned, more serious mentor, while Redford’s Hooker is a brash, careless, young con man flying by the seat of his pants.

After a mobster, played by a commanding Robert Shaw, has his friend and partner killed, Hooker seeks out Gondorff for help in getting revenge. The pair hire a gaggle of grifters and con artists and begin to plan a massive scheme involving a fake casino and fabricated horse race results. There are some twists and turns along the way that I won’t spoil here, but ultimately Hooker gets his revenge, of course, and the pair walk away with half a million dollars.

So, why am I able to enjoy these movies, even though they are about thieves? A lot of it has to do with Redford and Newman’s chemistry and charm, but it also has to do with the writing and directing. Especially in The Sting, I could understand the characters’ motivations fairly well. Hooker’s friend was brutally murdered over a relatively small amount of money, that one could argue, he genuinely needed to take care of his family. Hooker came from a neighborhood where there weren’t many options, and people did what they had to in order to survive. I may not condone what he did, but there’s no question that what the mobster was doing was worse. So it was not hard to enjoy seeing him get his comeuppance.

Ultimately, I think the thing that helps me enjoy both of these movies more than a lot of other crime movies is that they don’t take themselves too seriously. Where The Godfather tries to make scumbags into mythical American heroes, these movies just tell light-hearted tales of some lovable losers trying to get by. That’s much easier to relate to.