It was astonishing to see a young Jon Voight. He plays a hustler from Texas who has a desperate desire to escape what would promise to be a very limited life in a small backwater in Texas. The theme of escape from rural and provincial settings is a long-running theme in literature, and it can't help but offer a contrast to what has been another enduring and contrary theme, that of rural life as an antidote for the ills of modernity.
The Texan character is charming in his own way, brimming with self-confidence that is tempered at the same time by innocence and good cheer. The character has decided to pursue a career as a gigolo in New York, and he undertakes a long and exhausting bus trip to the capital of the East Coast. It is perhaps due to this mission, as well as a few select scenes of nudity and sex that seem very tame in comparison with the norms that exist today, that garnered the film an X rating. This seems thoroughly unjustified after viewing the film. Were we that prudish a culture back in the 60s?
It is inevitable that the character would prove lost in the urban landscapes of Manhattan. He is unable to find any clients, and is instead swindled by the people he meets so that he quickly lapses into penury. In the course of his wanderings he meets the character of Rico (Enrico), a many who is a small-time hood and who is limited by a limp that was apparently due to a bout with Polio. He is played with a certain grace by Dustin Hoffmann.
Rico (known as "Ratso" as well) joins the group of people who take advantage of the Texan (Buck), but it is difficult to see him as anything other than a graceful charmer. He is quite a vulnerable character as well, and what sticks to me is the way he smiles at Buck when he is found in a cafe, disarming him and steering him away from his murderous intent to punish him for the loss of all his illusions.
Buck will join Ratso in his place of abode, a derelict, abandoned building, and together they will undertake a partnership to ensure their survival. This is one of the most enduring and appealing aspects to this film, the way in which this unlikely pair come to trust and rely on each other. They are a mismatched pair, one the paragon of health and wide-brimmed optimism, the other a small knot of despair and jealosy that is tempered by a genuine wish for friendship and fellowship. They bicker with each other but they also become mutually dependent, and this becomes all the more evident as the Rico character becomes progressively more and more sick during the cold winter they spend in the building.
The new focus of their obsession becomes Florida. The difference in clime, the tropical airs, the "coconut-milk" that Ratso feels is so necessary for good health, the relaxed ambiance and the available of women, throngs and throngs of young and healthy bikini-clad women. This feeds the fantasies of Ratso, and he communicates his Florida fever to his friend Buck in an understated fashion, forcing the issue of their eventually uprooting themselves to venture south. (One suspects that Buck was initially resistant precisely because he already had a Southern background and a history of abandonement and solitude from which he was fleeing, as revealed in flashbacks.)
In the end, Buck commits a desperate act in order to acquire money for the bus trip south, and this culminates in the most poignant aspect of the film. Their friendship is solidified by the care which Buck lavishes on the ailing Ratso, a friend who is dying even as Florida looms ever nearer.
The final scene, in which Buck wraps his arms around a dead friend, with palm trees evident outside the windows and their final destination just minutes away, is one that is profoundly affecting, and demonstrates to what extent the Ratso character provided the emotional heart for this film. We are like Buck, and our innocence has been similary stripped. But we have been uplifted as well by the beauty of this friendship.
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