海角大神

鈥淏onnie and Clyde鈥� is one of the landmarks of Hollywood cinema, so it takes a healthy dose of chutzpah to revisit that territory. 鈥淭he Highwaymen鈥� does just that 鈥� sort of. Instead of focusing on the two elusive outlaws whose two-year bank-robbing spree galvanized Depression-era America, it retells the story from the point of view of the lawmen who ambushed and killed them.聽

Is it as good as 鈥淏onnie and Clyde鈥�? Of course not. But it鈥檚 a solid, straightforward piece of work featuring a pair of first-rate, lived-in performances by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson that lift the film above its class.聽

Costner plays Frank Hamer, a Texas Ranger who has been uneasily retired since before Gov. Ma Ferguson (Kathy Bates) disbanded the Rangers. With the nationwide manhunt going nowhere, she reluctantly calls on Hamer, who has an unparalleled reputation for bagging bad guys, to track down Bonnie and Clyde, who have become folk heroes. To Hamer, they are nothing more than cop killers. In accepting the assignment, it鈥檚 clear he has no intention of bringing them back alive.聽

He ends up enlisting, against his better judgment, a former Ranger from the old days, Harrelson鈥檚 Maney Gault, who, when we first see him, is a broken-down layabout with a drinking problem. But these two go way back, and, faced with the alternative of going it alone, and with Gault promising to reform, Hamer takes him on.聽

If 鈥淭he Highwaymen鈥� was shaped as a standard crowd-pleaser, director John Lee Hancock and his screenwriter, John Fusco, would have presented these men as creaky codgers grumbling their way on the hunt. (Hancock, by the way, wrote one of Costner鈥檚 best vehicles, Clint Eastwood鈥檚 鈥淎 Perfect World,鈥� in which he played a convict on the run.) Certainly that dynamic is
ever present, but the disparity between the two characters, which goes way beyond their temperaments, is never played for simple laughs. Hamer may be on the side of the law, but he has the stone-cold demeanor of someone for whom taking a life is just part of the job. Maybe even, if the cause is worthy, the best part of the job. To its credit, the movie doesn鈥檛 soft pedal the darkness within.

Gault, by contrast, can鈥檛 abide the killing that his work necessitates. He has a monologue where he talks about the time he and Hamer wiped out a band of more than 40 Mexican criminals, and it鈥檚 clear that, unlike Hamer, the horror of that incident has never left him. Similarly, when a crook with ties to Bonnie and Clyde comes to a bad end after he is set up by the two men, it is Gault alone who bemoans the loss of life.聽

Movies about violence rarely deal with its psychological consequences. Just pull the trigger and move on. In 鈥淭he Highwaymen,鈥� the filmmakers give violence its due. Hamer鈥檚 coldblooded composure isn鈥檛 just pasted on; we can see what it came out of. And Gault, beneath the jauntiness, is clearly racked with memories of bloodshed.聽

The film also functions as a kind of counterweight to the folk hero myth that 鈥淏onnie and Clyde鈥� perpetuated. (It also restores Hamer鈥檚 cinematic reputation after his buffoonish depiction in 鈥淏onnie and Clyde,鈥� which led his widow and son to successfully sue the film鈥檚 producers for defamation of character.) In 鈥淭he Highwaymen,鈥� we rarely get a glimpse of the outlaws at all, and when we do, it鈥檚 usually when they are sadistically murdering lawmen. The filmmakers could have done more to elaborate why, given their murderousness, they became heroes, with thousands openly mourning their deaths in 1934. But by keeping the focus on Hamer and Gault, the movie at least gives these men their rightful entitlement.

One more word about Costner: His performance in this film, coming after his fine work in TV鈥檚 鈥淵ellowstone鈥� as well as the films 鈥淗idden Figures鈥� and 鈥淢olly鈥檚 Game,鈥� among many others, is yet another note-
perfect rendition. He has a scene as Hamer where he meets up with Clyde Barrow鈥檚 father (a terrific William Sadler) and tells him how he once set out to be a preacher before he developed a taste for law-and-order vengeance, and you can see in that moment how righteousness is this man鈥檚 core. At his best, Costner both exalts and complicates the strong and silent types who crowd, often to diminishing effect, so much of our American movie mythology. Grade: B+ (Rated R for some strong violence and bloody images.)