Maybe it's true that only the good die young. Remember when we saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meet their deaths in a hail of bullets? Well, the magic of movies strikes again. We just thought that he died — because here's "Blackthorn," set some years later in 1927 in Bolivia, and here's Butch, going as James Blackthorn in the movie that opens today. It's aimed at an older audience that remembers the first movie with nostalgic love, and which still wishes John Wayne would make more.
It's an okay movie, and Sam Shepard, grizzled and slightly gimpy in the title role, always is fun to watch. The story isn't good enough, and it's easily predictable, and, of course, Shepard gets to fool around with a young and comely girl friend, played by Magaly Solier.
But as our hero grows older, he has a yearning to see San Francisco again, maybe because he left before the earthquake and wants to see what happened. There's no other reason that makes any sense. But on the way, he meets a convict on the run, so he pairs up with Eduardo Apocada (Eduardo Noriega), and they have some adventures, too.
Mateo Gil directs, and has a good eye for the beauties of the countryside. It's nice to see a South American western, and while the geography is different, the story is not.
Blackthorn opens today at the Tivoli
— Joe