I saw this in the movies with a buddy of mine when I was a kid. It was the first modern western I had seen.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid actually were outlaws at the tail end of the Old West. Played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford respectively, this pair are still holed up in Wyoming in 1898, robbing trains with their “Hole in the Wall Gang.” But Union Pacific head, E. H. Harriman gets tired of the gang robbing his trains so he hires the best trackers and lawmen in the country to find and kill Butch and Sundance. The pair are chased across the Southwest until finally cornered by the posse they have to jump off a cliff into a raging torrent to escape.
Figuring out that they’ll never escape Harriman’s men they decide to head down to Bolivia to steal gold from the miners. They start robbing banks and mine payrolls until finally they stir up so much trouble that the federal troops organize an ambush and at a small town they’re set upon by a large company of police. And while they are pinned down a military troop arrives complete with a cannon. The movie ends with the pair wounded and desperate charging out into a fusillade of lead to their apparent deaths.
This is a revisionist western of the type that came out in the sixties and seventies with anti-hero protagonists and questionable morals. So, if you’re more of a traditionalist this type of movie might not be your cup of tea. But in my opinion, this is a highly entertaining film. Newman and Redford are the quintessential bickering friends. Newman’s Butch comes up with the wild schemes and Redford’s Sundance reluctantly backs him and bails them out with his unbelievable shooting skill. I recommend it for the action and for the buddy comedy.