Directed by: John Schlesinger
Starring: Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro, John McIver, Barnard Hughes, Bob Balaban
As Midnight Cowboy opens, Joe Buck (Voight) quits his dishwashing job at a dive in Texas and hops on a bus to New York City. He dreams of becoming a rich gigolo with a huge clientele of rich women begging to be seduced. Joe is naïve and has no concept of how to accomplish this goal, but does get lucky with a bored, rich, middle-aged woman (Miles) who has no clue that Buck only wants to lay her for money. She assumed he thought she was pretty. He winds up giving her money for a cab after she cries. Deuce Bigelow could give Joe some pointers.
Joe soon crosses paths with Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Hoffman), a local con man with a nasty cough who promises Joe "representation" with a finder's fee for himself. Ratso promises to hook Joe up with a pimp, who turns out not to be a pimp. Joe then searches for Ratso looking to get his money back...as if someone like Ratso wouldn't immediately spend it.
Joe and Ratso soon cross paths again and we get to the crux of what Midnight Cowboy is about, which is the unusual, touching friendship between these two men. Watch Ratso's eyes when he first sees Joe again. He looks overjoyed, until he realizes that Joe is looking to kick his ass. Ratso no longer has the money, but he offers Joe some shelter in a condemned building with no electricity and just enough gas to make a cup of coffee. Joe continues to dream of becoming a rich male prostitute, while Ratso wants to move to Miami. Both are a million miles away from those dreams, so they spend each day conning and hustling just survive for another day of conning and hustling.
Both men are lonely and pathetic, but they find each other at just the right time. Ratso, whose teeth and disheveled appearance make him appear more rat-like, is frightened and lonesome. His famous "I'm WALKING here" scene is more of a declaration that he is still a human being for God's sake. Joe is more clean cut and with less of an edge, but is no less alone in a world he never thought would be so cold. Voight and Hoffman, both nominated for Best Actor Oscars for this film, deliver powerful, poignant portrayals of these men on the fringes of society.
The strength of the film is Joe and Ratso's budding friendship. There is also a subtext of each man's latent homosexuality. Ratso may be more in love with Joe than he lets on. Joe is not above receiving blow jobs from male strangers in movie theaters. One such customer (Balaban) reveals he has no money. Joe does not have it in him to shake the guy down, but later, he is able to beat up a potential john in a critical scene. But Joe soon finds he is unable to perform with a woman he picks up at an Andy Warhol-like party. She gently suggests he may be gay. There are vibes.
There are curious flashbacks to Joe's past involving his absent grandmother who raised him and a young woman's false rape allegations against him. Did these shape Joe? What effect did they have on him? The movie does not make it clear and, to me, it is unnecessary information anyway. Joe's actions do not need a backstory. We know Ratso is from the Bronx and visits his dead father's grave, but we know without being shown that he had a rough life.
The ending, as the two friends travel by bus to Miami, is touching and sad. Ratso's cough has blown into a full illness. Joe explains his future plans of getting a job and going legit. He is figuring his life out just as Ratso's quietly ends. It is sad because Voight and Hoffman were able to make us care. They made these men special to us and that is no small feat.
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