Although this film may not have nearly as much of an impact as the Hollywood Renaissance classic Bonnie and Clyde, I still relatively enjoyed it for what it attempted to do. The Highwaymen is a Netflix original film telling the story of the infamous criminals from the perspective of the two Texas rangers who finally brought them down. Costner and Harrelson are great in these roles but are unfortunately brought down by a shallow script and weak direction. Thankfully, I can tell a lot of fantastic crew went into the making of this film and I can not devalue their work because the production quality of this film is excellent. I just simply wish that the script would have relied more on some originality rather than the novelty of recreation.
Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner) and Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson) are two Texas rangers that are living their quite different lives after retiring from the force. When the infamous criminals Bonnie and Clyde start wreaking havoc in their state, the police force calls them back out of retirement to help hunt them down. The most interesting piece of this film is the different perspective surrounding this story and how the movie was shot differently compared to the classic, ultra-violent film. This aspect is honestly where I found the most enjoyment because it was fantastic to be able to match up the stories and see what was going on where. Even though the ending was predictable because of the fact that this is a widely-known true story, I enjoyed the tale of these two old friends re-bonding over one last case. My issue with these two men's stories is that they were written so horribly and did not make me care about them at all. In Bonnie and Clyde, the goal of the film is to make the audience care about the two characters and shock them by their sudden death by being gunned down. In The Highwaymen, however, I feel like the writer John Fusco was attempting to do the same thing for these rangers but failed to do so because of their lack of personality or decent characterization. Harrelson was the slight comedic relief while Costner was the "old gun coming out of retirement to prove his dignity one last time" archetype. This bothered me the most about these characters because there seemed to be no motivation for them to want to take this case. As they were content with where they currently were, the depth of these characters was never fully explored. I frankly couldn't tell you their names until the credits.
My other problem throughout this movie is that it did not contain nearly the same amount of emotion or shock value that Bonnie and Clyde did for audiences back in '67. Throughout the entirety of that movie, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are written to be crime-crossed lovers that we are supposed to care for. While the majority of the crime and actions are romanticized, the audience is snapped back to reality as they meet their demises. This proved to be such an amazing cinematic impact that I feel this film could not live up to. Telling the stories of the lawmen who hunted down these criminals is indeed an interesting premise, but better storytelling and direction might have actually made me feel for the characters' sense of ego and justice. I did love Costner and Harrelson's performances, however, as the two definitely carried this otherwise boring story. Their chemistry together and interactions with the other arms of the law made for some of the most entertaining scenes ever. They were both definitely able to embody the sense of fear that comes with hunting down these murderers while keeping a straight face of professionalism. This film was also heightened by incredible cinematography and beautiful costume design. John Schwartzman's camera abilities made for the most aesthetically-pleasing element of this movie's design while Daniel Orlandi's costuming seemed to be right out of the era. It was most interesting seeing how this crew shot this film, especially the death scene on the side of the road. I also liked how we never got to clearly see Bonnie or Clyde's face until the very end as they were killed; this aesthetic choice from Hancock was one that I actually appreciated.
The Highwaymen is a decent film that takes the story of Bonnie and Clyde and tries to make the audience feel for the people who took them down rather than the criminals themselves. While I do not think that this movie entirely accomplished that as well as the 1967 film, it was at least a creative take on the different people surrounding this case.
My Rating: ★★★½
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