Redford is beautiful. The 1930s mob setting is interesting. The score feels authentic. Stage design feels authentic. Vocab feels original. Men in suits with hats: amazing. I like the moderate pace (the movie could be shorter though). I like the fact that it mostly relies on the cast and script rather than on unnecessary action (or cheap violence). Feels very classy. It did age well, although some scenes are copied by later movies and aren't really the novelty they might used to be (like the train poker game). The twist and turns of the elaborate scheme are still very entertaining. Perhaps not very realistic though. In the end all sub-plots fall perhaps all too conveniently into place.

I guess the movie is almost timeless. A classic. It's not an über-complex masterpiece with a hidden message or social comment. It's just an entertaining movie. Think: *Ocean's Eleven*.

PS: I will never get why adults play card games (or bet on horses) with the stakes that high. I don't get it. Seems not like fun. Seems like a pathological condition to me.

PS2: How did the US go from this luxury train to the current appalling public train network?

PS3: biggest take away: my home state of RI had a famous horse race track named like the town I used to live in. Didn't know that. Fascinating.