The Legend of Butch & Sundance (2006)

Simply Perfect

Great Film overall

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Director Sergio Mimica-Gezzon's "The Legend of Butch and Sundance" qualifies as a lame, low-budget, full-frame, television western with outstanding production values. Nevertheless, this lightweight sagebrusher pales by comparison with the classic "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Michael Biehn of "The Magnificent Seven" television series is the biggest name in this otherwise no-name horse opera. Naturally, this semi-historical saga "is drawn from historical sources and based on actual events. In depicting the lives of Robert Leroy Parker (a.k.a Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longbaugh (a.k.a The Sundance Kid) certain composite, fictional and representative scenes and characters have been used for dramatic purposes." In other words, "Another 48 Hrs" scenarist John Fasano and Mimica-Gezzon wield dramatic license like a wide swinging lasso to rope and tie their subject matter. Indeed, Butch did blow up a train, but the incident looks rather lackluster here and the comic scenes are more amusing than hilarious. Mimica-Gezzon shows a reasonable amount of violence, but it isn't anything that will make you flinch. The leads, David Rogers and Ryan Browning, are personable enough talent, and their characters are as sympathetic as you can imagine, but neither makes much of an impression. They look like bland but handsome WB actors. Of course, they don't die in the end, so "Legend" bears a greater resemblance to Richard Lester's prequel "Butch and Sundance: The Early Years" (1979) with William Katt and Tom Berenger. The only thing remotely unusual about "Legend" is the three-way romance that the heroine, Etta Place, stokes with the eponymous outlaws.The action opens with Robert Leroy Parker (David Rogers of "Border Patrol") trying to elude a pistol-packing posse hard on his heels. They catch Parker and Parker spends a year in Wyoming State Prison, until a state official hands him a pardon because he believes Parker when Parker assures him that he won't commit any more crimes in Wyoming. No sooner does Parker get out than he falls into bad company with Mike Cassidy (Michael Biehn of "The Rock") who tells him about his sensational new hide-out on the borders of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. The scene shifts to Rifle, Colorado, in a elementary school classroom where a female photographer, Etta Place (Rachelle Lefevre of "Abandon"), is struggling to take a picture of rowdy school kids. She cannot calm them down, until a man in trail clothing with a bandana over his face enters and demonstrates his talent with his nickel-plated six-guns. The kids calm down after he threatens to shoot the ears off a boy. Harry Longbaugh (beach boy hunk Ryan Browning of "Stealing Sinatra") tells Etta that he has a good paying job shooting varmints for a rancher, when in fact he is riding with the Wild Bunch. Eventually, when Parker and Longbaugh meet, they are not impressed with each other. They encounter each other at Mike Cassidy's hideaway when Cassidy is recruiting new gunhands. Cassidy wants the new men to prove themselves by demonstrating their ability to switch horses. Harry shows off his marksmanship skills and Parker matches him. Initially, Harry doesn't think much of Butch who dresses like a city slicker.Mike Cassidy creates his Wild Bunch gang to fight the railroads that he hates with a passion. "The railroads own the banks. They control all the money. They decide who gets the loans. They foreclose on anybody who gets in their way. A handful of evil men are choking the life out of the west." He raises his glass of liquor to the gunmen around him. "You're going to set things right." A bearded ruffian, Durango (Blake Gibbons of "Hollywood Homicide"), who likes to spin a yo-yo, asks Cassidy what they plan to do to the railroad. "Hit them where they live," vows Butch. Butch, Sundance, Durango, and a couple of others ride into town to rob a bank, but they botch it and one of them is arrested. Little to Butch and Sundance know that Durango is a Pinkerton agent working undercover. Later, he becomes the mortal enemy of our heroes as he leads a posse against them. Butch takes a particular dislike to Durango because he has a hand in Mike Cassidy's death. Eventually, our heroes stage their own death when Butch rigs too much dynamite to a freight car. Our heroes with Etta, who can no longer run a newspaper because she cavorts with them, head down to Mexico and anonymity. Durango discovers them and follows them. Durango tries to turn the Mexican authorities against Butch and Sundance, but Etta exposes him as a fraud who only wants to take advantage of the Mexican lawmen. Our heroes abandon Mexico and Butch faces Durango down in the middle of the street in Wyoming in a classical western showdown. Butch cannot kill Durango and Durango knows why. Remember, Butch promised the Wyoming prison official that he was not going to commit a crime in Wyoming and he adheres to his agreement. Sergio Mimica-Gezzon is basically a television director who has called the shots on "Heroes," "Prison Break," "Battlestar Galactica," and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles." He keeps the action moving, but that is about all. His biggest claim to fame is having worked as first assistant director to Steven Spielberg on "Saving Private Ryan." There is nothing legendary about "The Legend of Butch and Sundance," but it has its moments and the production values, including the trains, western towns, Mexican sets, etc., make it look reasonably authentic as television westerns go. Again, the leads are engaging enough and Rachelle Lefevre is rather fetching as the liberated Etta. It's nothing memorable, but it is tolerable enough to sit through at least once.

Story line was pure crap!! It was a Hollywooder all the way. No room for fact here! The stars were absolutely crummy! Rachelle Lefevre was the only saving grace. She plays a character named Etta who is the girl friend of BOTH of the main characters. How STUPID can we be? Right?!! She did a marvelous job up against the two (so called) stars. Even if you have nothing else to do some day, do not waste 89 minutes of your day on this one. Of course, we must consider that it was "made for TV." This should be enough to keep you away! Photography was pretty good. Direction was totally stupid. Thank God that we know the REAL story of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!!

I don't know why, but there is something in this movie that had me waiting and waiting for reruns. I think it's Roger's charm and bubbly acting that attracted me to this movie. However, the movie seemed a little calm and cool-- maybe too calm for a Western, and sometimes the cowboy twang isn't captured and may had viewers raise eyebrows. The thing I liked about this movie is that the cast did not only fit their parts individually, but they actually fit each other-- sort of an all-cast chemistry. This makes the cast memorable. I felt that the movie lacked some details, but the cast definitely stood up to the challenge of a modern-day Western. Too bad there are no more reruns in HBO! :-(This could've-- I mean should have been nominated for Art Direction and Cinematography!

This TV movie is based on real events about But Cassidy and Sundance Kid and previously adapted to cinema by George Roy Hill with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. This film is well played by a juvenile cast, such as, David Clayton Rogers, Ryan Browning and a gorgeous Rachelle Lefevre, playing to Etta Place. They are continuously pursued by Pinkerton agent, played Blake Gibbons as Durango. Besides appear veterans actors as Susan Ruttan as Etta's mummy and Michael Biehn as Mike Cassidy, the Butch's mentor. The film displays a nice score by Basil Poledouris, at his last film. He was an excellent composer and author of masterpieces, he composed : Robocop, Conan the Barbarian, and the destroyer, Hunt for Red October, Flesh and Blood, Free Willy, Starship troopers, among others. The motion picture is rightly directed by Sergio Mimica, an usual director of television episodes such as, Invasion,Prison break and Battlestar Galactica.Adding more details about the Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid and Etta Place life, their true deeds were the following : they were celebrated leaders of the Wild Bunch gang of train robbers, and the last old-style bandits of the West. Cassidy, born in Utah, grandson of a Mormon bishop, his real name was Robert Parker. He adopted the name Cassidy in admiration of Mike Cassidy, a rustler who taught him to shoot and steal livestock , he was dubbed Butch from his short time working in a butcher's shop. He was convicted of stealing horses .By all accounts Butch was a likable fellow, described in a Pinkerton wanted poster as a having a cheerful and affable manner.It is said that, although a crack shot, he never killed anybody, and disliked gratuitous violence. Still determined on a life of crime he formed a gang, known as the Wild Bunch and robbed banks and trains. One of the gang was Harry Longbaugh, known as the Sundance Kid. This notorious pair became rustlers in the mid-90s, and they moved into train robberies, later, gaining fame and fortune but with the Pinkerton and railroad agents hot on their trail. Plus, Etta Place, fabled as the lover of Sundance Kid, it is very likely that Etta did take part in robberies, notably the hold up of Up Train in August 1900, dressed as a man. She did not, however died in Bolivia ambush that killed Butch and Sundance, since she was undergoing surgery on her appendix at the time. The Wild Bunch broke up and Cassidy and Longsbaugh sailed to South America in 1901 and continued their banditry there. It is believed they died in a gunfight with troops in Bolivia, near La Paz or Uruguay.