Directed by:
John Lee HancockScreenplay:
John FuscoCinematography:
John SchwartzmanComposer:
Thomas NewmanCast:
Kevin Costner, Woody Harrelson, Kathy Bates, Kim Dickens, John Carroll Lynch, W. Earl Brown, Thomas Mann, David Furr, William Sadler, Jesse C. Boyd (more)VOD (1)
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Kevin Costner plays legendary lawman Frank Hamer and Woody Harrelson will play his long-suffering sidekick Manny Gault. Though both men were out of the Rangers by the time Bonnie & Clyde started their robbery reign, they were commissioned as special investigators, coaxed back by a consortium of banks to assemble a posse and end the robbery spree of the notorious gang reputed to have killed 13 cops - and others. The Highwaymen takes the vantage point of the formidable posse headed by Hamer, an old style Texas Ranger who’d survived 100 gunfights and killed 53 people. (South by Southwest Film Festival)
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Reviews (8)
Netflix once again stumbled upon a good director and a solid premise. Add in the superb acting performance by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson and you will think that a quality viewing experience is guaranteed. Too bad that given its two-and-a-half-hour running time, the film is very slow-paced, which in the second half of the movie becomes quite a hindrance. Anyhow, the premise is great. I liked it. It’s definitely worth watching. Several scenes are really wonderful, but cutting it short by an hour wouldn’t hurt.
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An atmospheric, non-action crime film set in the 1930s that bears a little resemblance to Untouchables and Public Enemies in terms of expression, but falls short in terms of direction, scene composition, escalating tension and action. Costner and Harrelson are the draws and their cynical duo is the highlight of the film. Unfortunately, the main villains are given woefully little space and everything around them is basically insufficient. Not great enough as a robust crime drama, OK as an intimate drama between two obsolete detectives, but the ambition was obviously higher. But Netflix can check it off the list anyway.
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Nice but bland, The Highwaymen is a safe bet. Any hopes of originality for this version of the famous story die in the first third with the clichéd exposition of the main characters. And the rest of the movie does nothing to counter this assumption. But it’s not boring - Costner and Harrelson hold the movie together with their performances and Costner’s talk with Bonnie’s dad (William Sadler) goes deeper. The final shootout wasn’t all that hair-raising in real life, so the movie cannot have the epic climax that a flick in this genre needs.
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A wholesome homage to westerns that revives classical traditions like its likeable heroes. Viewers hungry for shootouts and darkness won’t be satisfied, but the neglected fans of the kind of genre flicks that back in the day were created like on a treadmill should be elated. If you liked the recent Hell or High Water and don’t mind an even more sedentary approach, this should be the film for you. And although a deeper look into the psychology of the characters, giving them more original conflicts, and not relying so much on proven templates wouldn’t have hurt, I actually enjoyed the slightly generic concept, I felt good in the company of the heroes and at one point I had no problem accepting the pace and the ambitions. Costner and Harrelson, especially, are very good, and Hancock was a surprise.
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Really genuine “too old for this shit" classical, old school, Western in a long time. And the fact that it takes place in 1930s when the economic crisis is in full swing and the cars are covering endless distances instead of horses, doesn´t change it at all. Slowly (I really mean very slowly) flowing, based on the central duo, beautifully captured and played. It's openly “McCarthy's" style, that´s for sure. In other words, it´s seemingly “only" genre movie with melancholic ambiance that is hard to resist. Its captivating (non) pace will either put you to sleep reliably or enchant you completely.
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