Movie Review: The Old Man & the Gun

The Old Man & the Gun **** / *****

Directed by: David Lowery.

Written by: David Lowery based on the article by David Grann.

Starring: Robert Redford (Forrest Tucker), Casey Affleck (John Hunt), Sissy Spacek (Jewel), Danny Glover (Teddy), Tom Waits (Waller), Tika Sumpter (Maureen), Ari Elizabeth Johnson (Abilene), Teagen Johnson (Tyler), Gene Jones (Mr. Owens), John David Washington (LT. Kelley), Barlow Jacobs (Offerman), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Detective Gene Dentler), Elisabeth Moss (Dorothy), Keith Carradine (Captain Calder), Robert Longstreet (Stepgen Beckley Jr., Esquire).

 

If you are going to build an entire movie on the charm, and cinematic legacy, of an actor you could do a lot worse than picking Robert Redford. In what may, or may not, be his swan song as an actor, Redford plays Forrest Tucker, a man who has been in and out of prison his entire life. When he’s not in jail, he’s robbing banks – and when he is in jail, he is trying to come up with ways to break out – which he has done 16 times over the decades. Tucker is likable and charming – even the people he robs describe him as nice – but he just cannot stop himself. Early in the film, we see him come home from his latest robbery, pry up the floor boards and throw his latest stack of cash down – on tops of many other stacks of cash. He probably doesn’t need to keep robbing banks – at least not as many as he does – but if he didn’t, what would he do with himself?

 

The Old Man & the Gun is the latest film from David Lowery, who has quickly built up a very solid – and eclectic – resume from the understated crime drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, to the Disney kid’s movie remake Pete’s Dragon, to his exploration of time and space of A Ghost Story. The Old Man & the Gun is perhaps his least ambitious film to date – it’s a simple character study of this guy who cannot stop himself, built upon the abundance of charm of Robert Redford – but perhaps that’s why it works so well. It doesn’t try to be anything it isn’t.

 

There are other characters in the film other than Redford – most notably there is Jewel (Sissy Spacek), a widow Tucker meets while driving away from one of his robberies, as her truck is broken down on the side of the road. Theirs is a low-key relationship of a kind – a romance, yes, but one built on the two taking pleasure in each other’s company more than anything else. Both are too old to be fooling with anything else. Then there is Lowery favorite Casey Affleck as John Hunt, a Texas robbery detective who makes it his personal mission to find Tucker – and his gang – after they pull off a robbery while Hunt himself is in the bank with his son, and doesn’t notice a thing. The other members of Tucker’s gang are Teddy (Danny Glover) and Waller (Tom Waits) – and while neither becomes much of a character, Waits does deliver a great story that ends with the line “and that’s why I hate Christmas” in a way that only Waits could.

 

The film takes place in the early 1980s, and Lowery seems to delight in recreating the era – not necessarily as it was, but how it looked in movies from that era. The film has a leisurely pace – it never rushes anything, which had the film run longer than 93 minutes could have dragged, but Lowery knew the right length for this story to go.

 

But really, the whole show here is Redford – and this is one of his best performances. Unlike, say, All is Lost which is another film that relied on Redford’s cinematic history for its effect, I don’t think The Old Man & the Gun really stretches Redford’s chops very much – this role is very much in his wheelhouse. But it certainly reminds you of how great Redford can be in that wheelhouse. Redford is still capable of that boyish gleam in his eye that made him a star more than 50 years ago – and he still looks better than most actors half his age (or less). In short, The Old Man & the Gun is basically pure pleasure – like sinking into a comfortable chair for 93 minutes with an old friend.