This is a film that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Instead of deciding, it floats by on the sheer charisma of the co-leads, Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Indeed, they are magnetic. At film's end you know little more about Cassidy & the Kid's motivations. Backstory is minimal. The default setting is "style over substance". Katharine Ross, who plays their special lady-friend, is given little to do. She should be regarded as a mere diversion, scene-dressing. So what it all hangs on, then, is Newman, Redford, and their banter. It doesn't help that the film's score is composed by Burt Bacharach. I adore Bacharach, but his lounge jazz tendencies do not jive with this project. The shoe-horning in of his hit song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" is a blatant cash grab and serves no purpose besides commerce. Perhaps the same ought to be said of the entire production - it was aimed at the audience's collective pocketbook. Well, they succeeded: this was the top box office movie of 1969. A fun romp, but no classic for all times.
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