The Book is Best I have read the book many times, probably read it more times than any other book in my life, since I first read it way back in high school and loved it. I still have the same copy of the book but it is very beat up and worn out, time to get a new one I guess. I view it as a great American tragedy or the greatest one ever written possibly. But tragedies about larger-than-life characters are not so easy to reproduce on-screen. This version is probably better than the new version with Leonardo Di Caprio but it is still not a very good film. In some ways I guess it is just impossible to hold a candle to the book version of the story when the book was so damn good. Robert Redford isn't bad in this and I generally like him in everything he does, but it's impossible to capture such a famous and deep character when everyone has the "perfect" version of that character in their head from the pages of the book. He doesn't measure up, but then again I don't think anyone ever could. It's too big of a job! This movie is worth watching but make sure you read the book first since that's the best way to get the story first hand. But it's not a very good movie because it can't possibly measure up and doesn't.