The Highwayman is a 2019 thriller about a pair of Texas Rangers who come out of retirement to catch the infamous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde.
The story of Bonnie and Clyde has long spun its way into folklore, even at the time, the young criminal duo winning over the hearts of the downtrodden as they stuck up banks and struck down the law. So prevalent was their run amoks that the couple were eventually romanticized and their legacy cemented in the 1960s with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway‘s performance in the Oscar-winning film that tracked their violent exploits.
Beyond all that though, the story that’s most overlooked in this epic tale of young rebellion gone wrong is the dogged police that hunted and eventually stopped the pair dead in their tracks (er, spoilers?). Thankfully, Netflix has come to the rescue of sorts with director John Lee Hancock‘s The Highwaymen, itself a bit of an idealized take on two Texas Rangers who come out of retirement to take on the killers. It’s a character study hidden behind a cop thriller with two excellent performances at the forefront with Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson bringing some of their best game. Read our review here.
Avoiding larger spoilers, the story is far less about Bonnie and Clyde themselves but rather the swath of destruction they leave behind. In fact, the infamous couple are almost never seen, save for a finale that at last reveals who we’ve been hunting all along. Instead, wisely, the film puts all its efforts into the two old Rangers and builds upon their own dark pasts, making them dulled but savage hunters with opposing methods but unbreakable loyalty. It’s this relationship that truly gives the film its legs with Costner as Frank Hamer and Harrelson as Benjamin Maney Gault. I could sit through a whole series starring these guys.
The movie is a sort of True Detective episode if you’re familiar with that episodic franchise (and of whom Harrelson is a veteran), following the same sort of slow and methodical chase that is less about the action and more about the consequences as Hancock stirs the pot with a deliberate hand, giving the people at its center enough room to breath and fill out the peripheral. This is a convincing and believable story one becomes quickly soaked into from the opening moments. Composer Thomas Newman layers in some moody music as well, never detracting but definitely lending it suspense and a real place in the time it’s set.
Let’s talk about Hamer though, a very real person given a proper big screen presence by Costner, a man with a long history of justice behind him, often with a pulled triggered getting him there. In the story, he’s worn and weary, but hungry to put his old tactics to use in blunt force fashion to end the reign of Bonnie and Clyde. There’s a fascinating moment in a gun shop when he prepares just for that. The man knows his weaponry.
His best moment though comes in a quiet scene just past the midway point when he rolls into a dusty town and enters the small mechanic shop of Henry Barrow (William Sadler), father of Clyde Barrow, the most wanted man in America. You can guess how this should play out. But you’d be wrong.
In the brief sequence, we learn from Henry what he thinks set his boy loose, an act of survival that got him into trouble and then excessive punishment, which soured him from a righteous path. Henry knows there is no turning back, that his son is destined for death and even pleads with Hamer [bg_collapse view=”link-inline” color=”#f50f0f” icon=”eye” expand_text=”Show Spoiler” collapse_text=”Close” ]to kill his boy and end the suffering he’s brought to the family[/bg_collapse]. Sadler is terrific in this significant cameo, lending the father-figure great weight in portraying a figure forever misshapen by the fate of his child.
However, I also like that the film gives Hamer a chance to strip away a bit of his mystery, telling a story of his youth, how he had longed to be a preacher before his own destiny reset his course. It’s a harrowing little story about corruption and darkness that I won’t spoil but is told with devastating effect from Costner, who has come to embrace this kind of tough, gravelly-voiced elder mentor of late.
Surely some of this in reality must differ from what’s on screen, but as a dramatic piece of storytelling in a film, hits with perfect pitch, the scene filmed in a muted sepia-ish wash as the room and characters are themselves relics seemingly pushing through the dirt, exposed at last for what they are. These are characters who feel like they should be opposites and while the film takes a moment to set that up, switches gears and lets it be instead about men with sordid pasts who know there is no gate to freedom but rather an end that may finish one thing but truly brings no closure for the rest of them.
The Highwaymen is now streaming on Netflix, one of the better original films on the service and well worth a watch.