THE HIGHWAYMEN (2019) **

Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde is one of those untouchable Hollywood classics that is just about pitch perfect in every way.  Penn did such a fine job on it that any film about the subject matter is going to suffer from comparison.  That said, John Lee Hancock’s The Highwaymen, which focuses on Frank Hamer, the man who brought the pair down, had potential.  

The Highwaymen could’ve been an interesting flipside to the familiar story.  It could’ve been an Unforgiven-style meditation of a man returning to a life of violence.  It could’ve just been an old-fashioned manhunt movie.  Unfortunately, it winds up being none of those things.  In fact, I’m not even sure it knows it wants to be.  

Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) is a former Texas Ranger who is lured out of retirement to take down Bonnie and Clyde.  He partners up with another ex-lawman (Woody Harrelson) and the two barnstorm the Texas countryside looking for the devious duo.  The trail runs hot and cold, but their doggedness eventually pays off and they’re able to finally hunt their quarry down.  

Costner is one of my favorite actors of all time, but he’s squarely set in one mode here:  Gruff Disinterested Costner.  He never makes Hamer someone we can root for, which probably is more of a shortcoming of the script (which was written by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:  Sword of Destiny’s John Fusco) than of Costner.  Harrelson gets one or two spry moments (like his run-in with some hoods in a bathroom), although his usual charisma is kept in check throughout the film.  

Hancock’s slack direction is ultimately the thing that sinks the flick.  The pacing lacks urgency and the drama is sluggish.  For a manhunt of the country’s most wanted duo, the titular gunmen don’t seem to be in any particular rush.  Like most Netflix directors, Hancock mistakes the lack of studio interference for a license to drag things out far too long.  It clocks in at 132 minutes, and yet it feels like you’re watching a multi-part miniseries.   

The ending is abrupt, unsatisfying, and unglorified, which is the point.  It also happens to be the only part that really works.  In fact, the brief scenes of crowds ogling the Bonnie and Clyde death car are far more effective than anything else that preceded it.  The stock footage of the death car and Bonnie and Clyde’s funerals shown as the film wraps up kind of makes me wish for an entire movie devoted to the car and the fascination that it holds to this very day.