The Highwaymen

The phrase "Bonnie and Clyde", used worldwide to describe situations where violent crimes or robberies are committed by a male-female pair, owes its popularity mostly to the eponymous 1967 feature film. That work by Arthur Penn, in which the title roles were played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, is today considered the catalyst of the movement that would later become known as New Hollywood, and one of the most important in the history of American cinematography. Its popularity among contemporaries, however, was owed mostly to the fact that the title characters were understood by young "baby boomers" as a kind of rebels against stale petit-bourgeois narrow-mindedness, i.e., precursors of the anti-establishment counterculture. The film, of course, turned into icons not only its stars but also the real historical figures Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the outlaw couple who in the early 1930s made headlines with a series of violent robberies and bloody armed clashes with the police. And, of course, it did so at the expense of historical authenticity. The real Bonnie and Clyde were understood by contemporaries less as romantic heroes than as dangerous psychopathic killers, and even their crimes were such that they were not heard of beyond Texas and the surrounding states, unlike John Dillinger and other far more professional criminals whose exploits captured the imagination of the public in the USA and the rest of the world. One of the few films that attempts to reckon with the widely entrenched myth of Bonnie and Clyde is The Highwaymen, produced by Netflix and premiered in 2019.

The Highwaymen is based on an original screenplay by John Fusco, in which he sought to portray the case of Bonnie and Clyde from the perspective of the lawmen tasked with putting an end to their criminal reign of terror. When the story begins in 1934, it seems that Texas and neighbouring states are having no success in this, so the criminal pair not only robs petrol stations and kills policemen in droves, but even carries out spectacular raids on prison farms to recruit new members for their gang. Because of all this, Texas Governor Miriam "Ma" Ferguson (Kathy Bates) is prepared to heed the suggestion that apply "fight fire with fire" method against the villains, i.e., to engage specialists in hunting the most dangerous criminals who gained their valuable experience as members of the Texas Rangers. The governor does this reluctantly, considering that organisation outdated and too inclined towards Wild West methods for which there is no place in the civilised 20th century. The task of catching Bonnie and Clyde is entrusted to Captain Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner), a former ranger who himself, due to his advanced years, is no longer sure that his old gunslinger skills will serve him. Hamer, however, is even more sceptical about his former colleague and friend Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson) who has become a grandfather and whom he suspects has taken to drink. The two of them eventually join forces and begin a long and arduous search, where they suffer distrust from state authorities, rivalry with the FBI, as well as the fact that not a small number of inhabitants of the land devastated by the Great Depression see the outlaws as heroes and seek to help them.

Fusco's original screenplay for The Highwayman is so old that the main roles were envisioned for Paul Newman and Robert Redford. How good Costner and Harrelson are as replacements for those two icons can be debated, but in the context of the film itself they function more than well, and it can even be said that they are the best thing about The Highwaymen. The somewhat forgotten and visibly aged Costner excels in the role of a weary but determined hunter of villains, just as Harrelson, who was also one of the producers, is very good as his conscience. The film can also boast a more than good rest of the cast, among whom it is worth singling out the always reliable character actor William Sadler in the role of Barrow's father. The Highwaymen also very effectively strives to keep the film's focus on the main characters, so that Bonnie and Clyde, in fact, hardly appear in the film and mostly serve as the embodiment of terrifying psychopathic Evil. Unfortunately, neither the screenplay, nor the direction of the otherwise solid John Lee Hancock, took rhythm into account, so the film is simply too slow, i.e., overloaded with unnecessary dialogues and scenes, especially in the middle. The Highwaymen becomes good only at the end, when it faithfully reconstructs one of the most famous ambushes in American history and makes it clear to fans of the 1967 film how much historical facts were manipulated. The Highwaymen can therefore be recommended primarily to fans of Costner and Harrelson, or viewers who can afford to spend precious time on films that should have been significantly shorter.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)

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