Four stars. Rated R, for strong violence and bloody images
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.5.19
Some actors are inherently captivating, even when their characters are engaged in activities that aren’t otherwise cinematically interesting.
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| Having detected a possible pattern to Bonnie and Clyde's movements, Many Gault (Woody Harrelson, left) and Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) hope to be on hand, the next time the outlaws strike. |
That’s definitely true of Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, who make an art form of quiet, contemplative brooding in director John Lee Hancock’s The Highwaymen. Both are note-perfect as — respectively — Texas Rangers Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, brought out of retirement in early 1934, in order to hunt down Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.
John Fusco’s thoughtful, fact-based screenplay does much to undo the historical damage wrought by 1967’s pop culture-oriented Bonnie and Clyde. At the same time, Fusco slyly acknowledges the dangerous “cult of celebrity” that made the outlaws attractive to people beaten down by Depression-era poverty, who naively — stupidly — believed that two kill-crazy sociopaths were “looking out for the common folks.”
(That dynamic similarly blinds the percentage of today’s American public that continues to worship at the altar of a narcissist who repeatedly worsens their lives.)
Although Bonnie and Clyde’s increasingly violent crime spree had continued for two years — in part — due to overwhelmed small-town police departments not yet able to coordinate effectively with each other, the challenge of catching the outlaws was exacerbated by civilians disinclined to help. But that sentiment began to shift after Jan. 16, 1934, when the gang freed a quartet of inmates from Texas’ Eastham Prison Farm, shooting two guards in the process. (One died two weeks later.)
This was the last straw for Texas Gov. Miriam Amanda Wallace “Ma” Ferguson (an appropriately feisty Kathy Bates), and it’s where Hancock’s film begins. Despite opposition from Bureau of Investigation agents — soon to become the FBI — Ferguson lets her Department of Corrections chief (John Carroll Lynch, as Lee Simmons) seek out Hamer, long respected as a dedicated and dogged law enforcement officer.
Despite that, he’d been forced into retirement after Ferguson disbanded the Texas Rangers the previous year (political revenge, after the agency had backed her election opponent). We meet Hamer on a typical morning, as he putters silently around the lovely home shared with wife Gladys (Kim Dickens). We get a sense that she’s constantly busy with volunteer work, whereas Costner’s resigned, slightly aimless expression speaks volumes about a man who has lost his purpose in life.
Even so, Hamer is disinclined to accept Simmons’ request, in part due to a reluctant recognition of age-related limitations, and also by way of respecting Gladys’ legitimate fear over the assignment’s obvious dangers. The die is cast when Bonnie and Clyde are involved in another violent confrontation in Missouri.
Hancock makes a point of not granting these outlaws “identity” by framing them in close-ups. They’re always seen in long shots, never very distinctly; on the few occasions it’s necessary for cinematographer John Schwartzman to move closer, they’re turned away, back to camera. Hancock maintains this throughout most of the film, thus granting considerable dramatic weight to the exceptions.
Before beginning the hunt, Hamer looks up former partner Benjamin Maney Gault (Harrelson), whose similar forced retirement has resulted in financial hardship and visible desperation. Costner’s expression is equal measures concern and grave doubt, wondering if perhaps his longtime friend is too far gone. But Gault is willing to plead, and so the team is back in action.
The irony, moving forward, is that Gault becomes the voice of calm and reason, whenever Hamer’s frustration and anger threaten to become unchecked.
The shared dynamic is fascinating. Costner and Harrelson slide into the skins of these men, each fully aware that the other always knows what he’s thinking, or thinking of doing; it’s almost as if they’re a renewed single entity that had languished when forced to separate.
Both also share the burden of having a talent — for tracking and coldly executing vermin — that deadens their souls, and makes them social pariahs; we see that in Costner and Harrelson’s eyes, as well.
Conversation is laconic; we sense intent more from Costner and Harrelson’s expressions and body language, than actual dialog. The script’s occasional humorous touches are as dry and dusty as the massive lower Midwestern plains bisected by lonely stretches of straight highways: nonetheless majestic tableaus, as framed by Schwartzman’s lens.
(Fusco’s script was in development as early as 2005, and originally intended as a project for Paul Newman and Robert Redford; it’s intriguing to contemplate how they might have approached these two roles.)
Mild tension is supplied by the skepticism of younger Bureau agents who assume these two “old dogs” are incapable of keeping up: a concern granted a note of legitimacy at one point, when an embarrassed Hamer loses a footrace and fails to catch a potentially important suspect. Costner’s anguish is palpable: the angry indignation of a man betrayed by his own body.
But not every part of his body. Hamer’s the one who spots a pattern in the gang’s movements: a wide circle anchored by Dallas, northwest Louisiana and Joplin, Mo., with a focus on cities near borders, in order to exploit “state line” laws that impede police pursuit. Hamer therefore is encouraged by the possibility that Barrow can be anticipated.
Costner and Harrelson are accompanied by an equally fine supporting cast. Lynch makes the most of his brief role as Simmons, and Bates is a hoot as tough-as-nails Ma Ferguson. (A woman as Texas’ governor, in the early 1930s? Who could have imagined?) Thomas Mann is persuasively nuanced as Dallas Deputy Sheriff Ted Hinton, who — as a childhood friend of Bonnie and Clyde’s — is able to identify them on sight.
But that childhood bond worries Hamer, knowing that Hinton failed to use his gun during a previous confrontation with the pair. Mann subtly conveys this emotional conflict; we see the uncertainty in Hinton’s eyes. This vanishes on Easter Sunday, when they learn that the gang has callously executed two highway patrol officers in Grapevine, Texas; from this point forward, Mann’s bearing is completely different.
Michael Corenblith’s production design is impeccable; we can almost smell the poverty wafting from the many distressed communities and ramshackle homes. Composer Thomas Newman is in familiar territory; his orchestral score is as richly elegiac and foreboding as his Oscar-nominated music for 2002’s similarly themed Road to Perdition.
Hancock and Fusco conclude their film on an atmospheric note that echoes the final scene of 1992’s Unforgiven, having fully deconstructed the “celebrity” aspects of Bonnie and Clyde’s legend much the way Clint Eastwood’s film stripped all trace of glamour from classic Hollywood Westerns.
It’s also nice to see Frank Hamer getting the credit he deserves. His portrayal in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde is so maliciously inaccurate — he’s depicted as an incompetent buffoon — that Warner Bros. was forced into an out-of-court settlement when Hamer’s widow and family sued for defamation of character.
Hancock’s film would make a great double-bill with 2016’s Hell or High Water, but — as a further sign of rapidly changing times — The Highwayman is available only via Netflix.
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