One of Jon Voight's first films, this was the one that kicked off his film career. This would be the film that also exploited Dustin Hoffman's true acting talent. This would also be the first X-rated film ever to win an Oscar for Best Picture (although by today's standards, it would barely even be rated-R). This would also be one of the first great films that kicked off one of the best decades of American film, the 1970s.
I'd been dying to see this film for some time. It was a landmark film in so many ways and it was great in so many ways. It's a story about a very positive, though very naive boy from Texas named Joe Buck (Jon Voight) whose past haunts him and wants to escape his hometown Texas life (and his past) for a life of sex and gigolo-ism in New York City. He finds that the New York life isn't all it's made out to be and he struggles, all the while getting hustled himself and having to subject himself to the pains and horrors of a small-town kid trying to make it in the big city. He befriends one of the guys who hustles him (Dustin Hoffman) and you see their friendship grow throughout the film as they struggle to survive together.
I thought the film was incredibly well done. It was real ahead of it's time for 1969, complete with flashbacks, flashing images, personal horror, violent emotion. The direction was phenomenal and the acting was some of the best these actors have done in their careers. The mise-en-scene portrays a very dark NYC complete with homelessness, violence, anger, etc. The kind of NYC you feel in the wide variety of films in the 70s - Rosemary's Baby, Saturday Night Fever, any Woody Allen film etc.
I really felt every shift in emotion that I don't get from very many films nowadays. The flashes going through the mind aren't just of his past but of his present and of both simultaneously. His inner conflict is further complicated by his sense of southern positive yet naive attitude toward life that makes the viewer feel a huge sense of sympathy towards him. His ability to forgive those who've hustled him and to befriend complete strangers pains the viewer because you almost want him to walk away. To go back home. But as we learn later in the film, even his resilience is challenged.
His sympathy towards other human beings is what seems to keep him going. His desire to make it big is only paralleled with his desire to have a companion in life. He finds it in Enrico Rizzo (Hoffman) and you see a true friendship take form.
The film was overall pretty depressing but just a great feat of filmmaking that I would suggest to anyone who wants a great film to watch.