Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Midnight Cowboy is another one of those "I should have seen it by now" films that was recently shown on HDNet. The film, starring John Voight as Joe Buck and Dustin Hoffman as Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo is a depressing film about broken people in a broken world. Buck is a poorly educated young man who was once abused by his grandparents and raped by others, who travels to New York to hustle rich ladies for sex and money. His grand naiveté lands him in the path of Ratso, who cons Buck out of twenty bucks and leaves him on his own.

Buck struggles to understand the complexity of New York City and discovers the world is not as easy to conquer as he once thought. He runs into Ratso again and, despite Ratso's history, they become friends, living in a condemned building. Just as Buck seems to get an "in" into the hustling business, things go from bad to worse as their apartment building nears demolition and Ratso's health continues to decline. They struggle greatly and eventually Buck kills a man and steals his money to take Ratso to Florida on a bus before his health declines past the point of no return.

This film, directed by John Schlesinger, was interesting, but not nearly as gratifying as I had expected it. I don't know why this was considered so special... it must have said something important when it was made in the late 60's, but now it is just a story about broken people with no hope of succeeding in life succumbing to their own devices.

If you like watching sad people live sad hopeless lives, this movie is for you.