Midnight Cowboy

Starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman
Directed by: John Schlesinger
Rating: X
Genre: Drama
1969

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Joe Buck (Jon Voight) moves from Texas to New York City to work as a sexual hustler. He finds the business harder to break into than he imagined, and befriends a common thief named Ratzo Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman). The two men try to create a life out of the gutter in which they live.

Review:

Tim: This was the first and only X-rated film to ever win Best Picture. To be fair, this movie is somewhat tame by today's standards, and has mostly been reclassified as an "R" rated movie. Still, it was incredibly risky and provocative for the time in which it was released. This is one of the most unlikely Best Picture winners. The film starts out incredibly slow, then builds momentum until the end, which is surprisingly powerful and poignant.

The reason to watch this film is for the two outstanding performances of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. These two men give tour-de-force performances. Both Voight and Hoffman were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor for their performances. I'd especially single out Hoffman, who has the film's most famous line- "I'm walking here!" He gives a strange but very memorable performance.

Despite some of its strengths, I felt like Midnight Cowboy was at times very difficult to watch. I don't mean this in a necessarily good way. I felt bored at certain junctions, and specific scenes felt far too long and boring. While the movie packs an emotional punch at the end, the journey to that point doesn't always provide the best movie-viewing experience. This is an important movie to see, but it isn't always an enjoyable one.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Graduate, Catch-22