The Triple Redford

Well that title sounds kinda dirty. In our 6th round we have the match up of George Hill and Sydney Pollack. For George Hill we have Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and for Pollack we have Out of Africa and Tootsie. Needless to say based on these films this is no Tarrantino vs. Michael Bay. In fact this has easily been the hardest round we've had so far. Both of these guys are top notch and produced two great and I mean great films.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - This was the first of the two great Hill, Redford, Newman match-ups and it is near pitch perfect. It's the story of two of the wild west's greatest outlaws and their struggle against a society that tries to get them to play by their rules. Early on you can see a clear connection between the outlaws and the 1960's culture that this film was born out of. The allegory is almost palpable. Newman and Redford are perfect as a duo with Newman playing the funnier easy going quick talker and Redford playing his strong silent straight man. The two quickly get into a showdown with the railroad's richest financier J.P. Morgan who takes a personal affront to their train robbing and sends the world's greatest collection of law men after them. This leads to one of the best chase sequences in any film I have ever seen and soon it becomes obvious that for Newman and Redford there is no escape. This is probably the strongest sequences of the film: two perfectly played characters running from situation to situation getting more and more desperate and Newman always being able to diffuse the tension with a hilarious line. The tension only breaks after the pair make a desperate plunge off a cliff and then run off to Argentina. They bring with them the love story of the film and we get introduced to one of the most clever and complex love triangles I have seen in any movie. The end sneaks up on you but makes perfect sense and the actual ending is one of the most shocking and violent I have seen so far in the contest. The one last thing I want to mention about this film is the music, which was amazing and brought each scene up to a new level that was near perfect and I doubt some of the longer sequences would have been as effective without it.

Genre - Western 9/10
Characters - 7/10
Mood, Theme, Ambiance - 8/10
Inventiveness - 9/10
Film Quality - 9/10
Total: 42/50

Tootsie - This was the only film that I hadn't seen prior to this round beginning and I certainly enjoyed it. It's a comedy starring Dustin Hoffman as an out of work actor trying to find work wherever he can get it. Through a turn of events he manages to get a part on a soap opera after he dresses like a woman to prove a point to his agent. This sets off a series of events that leads to Hoffman being stuck in a ridiculous love pentagram. The entire films works as a way for Hoffman who is a bit of a stereotypical womanizer to remove himself from his normal treatments of women and allows him to connect with a more equal feminist approach to relationships. This is seen most clearly in the men who become interested in Hoffman when he's dressed as Tootsie. The first is the Director of the soap opera Ron Carlisel (Dabney Coleman) who treats women very similarly to Hoffman himself mainly as sex objects spurred on by his position of power over them this treatment becomes bad enough that his girlfriend and love interest of Hoffman in the movie (Jessica Lang) eventually is driven to near alcoholism. Then there is the completely oblivious John Van Dorn (George Gaynes) who can't seem to notice how woman are simply not interested in his advances and leads him to near rape. The final of the trio is the love interest's father Les Nichols (Charles Durning) who is old fashioned and sees woman mainly as complementary to the male role this leads him to propose to Tootsie after their first date. These three experiences lead Hoffman to see the error of his ways and makes him a better man. Needless to say the plot is nearly perfect and hilarious at times. But the overall message of the film is a bit lacking when the more feminist messages get lost is Hoffman's change. A few of the characters and more serious situations are in the end dealt with by one liners and laugh situations which when dealing with topics like rape doesn't really work.

Genre - Comedy 8/10
Characters 8/10
Mood Theme Ambiance 6/10
Inventiveness 7/10
Film Quality 8/10
Total: 37/50

The Sting - The sting is a fantastic movie. A period gangster piece set in 1930's Chicago that reunites Hill, Newman, and Redford. While similar in style and quality this film is far more light hearted then Sundance Kid. Redford and Newman unite to play a big scam on a notorious mob boss who rules all of Chicago after a good friend of theirs is slain. But their adversary is overbearing and murderous and the two need to find a way to escape with their lives. The plot similar to Tootsie is near flawless with each moment finely crafted. The mood and ambiance of the film while for the most part superficial does say a bit about the nature of good and evil and friendship under pressure. The music manages to be even better than Sundance which I didn't think possible and manages to push the film along through the slower sequences and tie together the quicker moving parts. There is not much else to say about the Sting. Every part is well crafted and the plot while self contained manages to hide the twists from the audience in a near perfect way that never feels dishonest. You feel in on the whole thing from the beginning only to learn that the director is effortlessly ahead of you at every point. This film basically becomes the blue print for every plot driven thriller that follows it.

Genre - Crime Thriller 8/10
Characters - 8/10
Mood Ambiance Theme - 7/10
Inventiveness - 8/10
Film Quality - 8/10
Total - 39/50

Out of Africa - This is the most epic of epic romances. Meryl Streep plays a Danish baroness whose heart has been broken by a heartless lover in Denmark so she decides to marry his friendly brother and run away with him to Africa to start new life. There are not enough words in the English language to describe the beauty of Africa and Pollack uses every gorgeous location to its fullest advantage. Streep is near perfect in for what will for me become the measuring stick for every other film she is in. The film trails her perspective and just as Africa feels dangerous, beautiful, and erotic the audience feels each moment emanating from her. Her counterpart in the film is Robert Redford who plays the only man who can match wits with Streep's character and she falls madly in love with him. The only problem is that Redford refuses to be held by any woman. The harder she tries the further it drives him away. Each character is played accurately and neither is given an advantage in the audience's perspective. The inevitable confrontation comes when the rest of Streep's life begins to fall apart and we she that she is looking for someone to lean on unfortunately for her Redford will not be that man. After their break up her life spirals further out of control and eventually she must leave Africa. The end is sad as most romances end up being but perfectly toned and unexpected. The story plays upon the interesting topic of possession and Africa as the perfect garden of Eden landscape that all the countries of Europe fight war after war to control . Streep can't keep Redford and have him remain what he is meant to be just as Africa can't be conquered and remain what enticed so many to come to Africa.

Genre -Epic Romance 9/10
Characters - 9/10
Mood Ambiance Theme - 9/10
Inventiveness - 8/10
Film Quality - 9/10
Total: 44/50

So that brings an average score of for 40.5 Hill and an average of for 40.5 Pollack. Well shit now I've got to figure out how to handle a fucking tie.