"The Highwaymen": A-. The 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde was a huge commercial and critical success. The team of director Arthur Penn plus script writers David Newman and Robert Benton glamorized the personas of the title characters, who became living 1930's legends for their bank robberies and shoot outs. Played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, whom singer Carly Simon might have described as making such a pretty pair, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow drew the admiration and adulation of thousands of rural citizens. The U.S. was still feeling the effects of The Great Depression. Folks down on their luck needed a hero or two, and thus became enamored with the exploits of the outlaw couple. Even we, as movie viewers, pulled for the Barrow Gang until the bitter end.
The Highwaymen, a recently released motion picture starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, shows us how things looked from the opposite perspective. Instead of concentrating on the high jinx of the famous robbers or their intimate moments which humanized them in the earlier film, director John Lee Hancock and writer John Fusco show their dark side -- a very dark side. Rather than tease and toy with police officers as depicted in Penn's film, Bonnie is a cold-blooded, cowardly killer who shows no mercy whatsoever to her victims. Many cops are shot not in the heat of "battle," such as during a bank heist or a high speed chase, but in the middle of the road where they were unsuspectingly approaching Barrow's car which had appeared to be broken down.
After one particularly sad assassination, Texas governor Ma Ferguson (Kathy Bates) is feeling the political heat. Fearing her constituents are starting to think she has lost control of the law enforcement she had promised when taking office, she directs one of her top aides, Lee Simmons (John Carroll Lynch), to seek out retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Costner) for help. Simmons' orders are to persuade Hamer to go after the desperados and, by any means, put an end to the carnage. The governor's offer, via Simmons, is on the "q.t."; Ma doesn't want to appear desperate in the eyes of the public. The pay offered to Hamer, roughly $100 a month plus expenses, is laughably low, but at least he will be deputized, thus putting him one level above a mere bounty hunter. The only catch is that his jurisdiction is limited to the state of Texas. As soon as we hear that, we know the Red River boundary separating Texas from Oklahoma won't stop Hamer's hot pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde.
At first Hamer isn't interested, offhandedly turning Simmons away. Hamer doesn't dislike retirement, although he probably realizes it's not everything it's cracked up to be. He's content having time alone with his pet wild boar. But his spendthrift wife, Gladys (Kim Dickens), with her penchant for attending and hosting fancy parties, causes Hamer to rethink the governor's offer. Once he takes on the job, he is all-in, totally focused on putting an end to the bloody exploits of the fugitives, thus avenging the peace officers' murders. Soon thereafter Hamer pairs up with his former colleague, Maney Gault (Harrelson). The two former Texas Rangers become the Lone Star State's version of The Odd Couple, but mostly without the humor. This relationship, more so than the actual pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde, is the strength and core of the movie.
There's little doubt that Hamer is the duo's leader, yet he reluctantly respects Gault's opinions which are based on years of law enforcement experience. The well-written dialogue between the two men cleverly balances serious discussion with the kind of good natured ribbing which only old acquaintances could pull off without rancor. Much of the time is spent with the more loquacious Gault testing the limits of what he can get away with as the stern Hamer's partner. A prime example is Gault's assertion that he has given up drinking, yet he always has a bottle of booze handy. Hamer tries to remain as aloof as possible, never willing to admit that he needs Gault's help. When Gault asks Hamer a question, more often than not Hamer has no reply before walking off. Nevertheless, the longer they're together the more obvious it becomes that their teamwork must be an essential ingredient if they hope to accomplish their mission.
The hunt for the celebrity criminals takes Hamer and Gault across the highways, dirt roads and even farm fields of several plains and southern states. The brand new, shiny Ford which Hamer borrowed from Gladys takes a beating. A weakness of the script is that the former Rangers rarely, if ever, chase a bad lead. If they hear a rumor that the gunslingers are in a town several hundred miles away, sure enough it turns out to be true. I was willing to put up with that convenience. Otherwise, the run time of the film would have necessarily been twice as long.
It was quite entertaining watching the veteran actors, Costner and Harrelson, play off each other. Costner throughout his career has usually made very good decisions about which roles to play. The fact that even at age sixty-four he can pass for a much younger man affords him plenty of options. As for Harrelson, who would have ever guessed back in the eighties and early nineties, when the smash hit television comedy Cheers ran for eleven seasons, that goofy Woody the bartender would emerge from that terrific ensemble cast as one of filmdom's finest actors?
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