A
film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on March 30, 2019.
It
has taken Hollywood more than fifty years to produce a rebuttal to Arthur
Penn’s classic Bonnie and Clyde. In
the romanticized 1967 gangster film, law enforcement in general and Frank Hamer
in particular were portrayed as bumbling up until the final ambush. John Lee Hancock’s The Highwaymen shows, as Paul Harvey was fond of saying, the rest of the story. In this iteration
of Bonnie & Clyde’s final act, Hamer (Kevin
Costner), is presented as a solid, competent lawman who divines the doomed
couple’s location not through luck (as in Bonnie
and Clyde) but as a result of deduction and investigation. Although nowhere
near as lush, artistic, and downright entertaining as the Warren Beatty - Faye
Dunaway interpretation, The Highwaymen
hews closer to the historical facts, with the climactic ambush being filmed
on-location where it happened.
Despite
arguments by Hancock to the contrary, there are times when John Fusco’s screenplay accepts unproven myths and legends
(especially about Bonnie) as facts. The story starts with Texas governor Ma
Ferguson (Kathy Bates at her
sourpuss best) holding her nose and reluctantly agreeing to bring back retired Texas
Rangers Frank Hamer and Maney Gault (Woody
Harrelson) to supplement the official
police and FBI taskforce tracking Bonnie and Clyde. While the younger agents
and cops working the case aren’t openly antagonistic toward the old timers, neither are they
deferential. But Hamer’s tenacious, methodical approach works where the
newfangled technology-driven methodology fails.
The
climactic ambush is staged differently than the one in Bonnie and Clyde. In addition to being shown from the lawmen’s
perspective, it’s less over-the-top. As was the case in real life, Clyde
doesn’t get out of the car and there’s no long, wordless exchange of loving
looks between the two outlaws. The sickening souvenir-hunting that follows the
massacre, after the bullet-riddled Ford with the two outlaws still inside had
been towed into Gibsland, is reflective of what happened and says something
ugly about human nature.
Although
there is some humor in The Highwaymen,
it, like everything else in the film, is dry. The movie is at times too serious
for its own good and the borderline-dour tone deflates the buddy film aspect. It’s as if director John Lee Hancock wanted to
put as much distance between his movie and the one made a half-century ago by
Arthur Penn that he avoids anything that could be misinterpreted as campy. In
the process, however, he leeches some of the fun out of the proceedings.
The
screenplay had been kicking around for more than a decade before the project
finally moved into production. In its nascent stage, it had been envisioned as
one last Redford - Newman pairing. After Newman’s death, Redford backed out.
The next iteration matched Harrelson with Liam Neeson; when the latter wasn’t
available, Costner stepped in. Watching the Dances
with Wolves actor in this role, it’s hard not to remember his turn as
Elliot Ness in The Untouchables and,
although the two lawmen are dissimilar in many ways, Costner’s portrayal of Hamer
shows how much he has grown as a performer over the years. He’s relaxed,
confident, and exhibits solid chemistry with Harrelson. However, although the
two actors work well together, The
Highwaymen might have benefitted from more time exploring their
relationship. That aspect is too thin to satisfy.
The Highwaymen’s straight-to-Netflix
distribution should boost its profile. Although it would have been a close call
to recommend for theatrical viewing, I have no reservations about endorsing it
for home viewing. It’s a solid, mostly factual reflection of events that have embedded
themselves in the Depression-era’s gangster mythology. No film is ever going
unseat Bonnie and Clyde as the definitive telling of the crime duo’s
exploits but The Highwaymen’s
different outlook makes it a worthy, if lesser, companion piece. [Berardinelli’s
rating: 3 stars out of 4]
Blogger’s
comment: While my memories of the Beatty – Dunaway Bonnie and Clyde have dimmed over the years, I recently watched a
documentary on the subject and remember that there were several reasons why the
duo’s crime spree went on as long as it did. First, this was the depths of the
Depression (1932-34) and the pair only robbed banks, banks that were at the
time repossessing failed farms and businesses, they were viewed as folk heroes.
Indeed The Highwaymen reported at the
end that 20,000 people came to Bonnie Parker’s funeral, and 15,000 to Clyde
Barrow’s. Second, they sought out fast, powerful Ford V8s as getaway cars, and
apparently Clyde Barrow even wrote a letter to Henry Ford praising him for manufacturing the
car. Third, they also robbed army armories, stealing Thompson submachine guns,
Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs), semiautomatic pistols and hand grenades, so
they totally outgunned local police forces who often had to buy their own .38
caliber revolvers and ammunition.
SPOILER:
I was impressed by the fact that The
Highwaymen recreated the final ambush at the same spot on the highway near
Gibsland, in rural Bienville Parish, Louisiana where it actually took place on
May 23rd, 1934. Also, in keeping with Frank Hamer’s character, he had Ivy
Methvin (W. Earl Brown), father of
one of the Barrows gang members, jack up his pickup truck and take a tire off, as
though he was changing a flat tire, under the assumption that Clyde Barrow
would stop to help him. And when Barrow did stop, Hamer stepped out of the
bushes alone, standing in front of the car with his BAR raised and ordering the
pair to raise their hands. He gave the pair five seconds to respond and when
they reached for their weapons, assuming they had a chance against a single man,
the entire team of half a dozen lawmen from Texas and Louisiana opened fire
from ambush. While some thought the pair should have been given a chance to
surrender, The Highwaymen notes that
at least nine police officers and four civilians were murdered by the pair, and
that Clyde Barrow’s father Henry (William
Sadler) had told Hamer his son would never be taken alive.
Label:
biography, crime, drama, Netflix, tragedy
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