Le gang des Newton

Fans of the Director will probably be disappointed in this rather straight telling of the Real-Life, dirt poor Bank Robbers. There is a colorful often made story of Anti-Heroes waiting to be told here, but for some reason, while engaging and fun this Movie kind of disappoints and at the same time is a somewhat amusing, if not a terribly interesting misfire.

Here the talented and usually off-kilter Director has been restrained by the conventions of the Genre. It is all handled with taste and is a tactful representation of likable Criminals who never killed anybody, but they did rob 80 banks. That in itself is a feat worthy of any Comic Book Character.

There is a standout cast and the Movie looks great. But in the end it kind of loses momentum, but is never completely unworthy of the gist it created. Not a bad diversion and is Worth a Watch as a rather lightweight entertainment that will let down more viewers than it captures. A bit different and deserves more credit than criticism.

What makes "The Newton Boys" so interesting is that it is based on a predominantly true story. Lead by Willis Newton (Matthew McConaughey, a Texan) who had big dreams of drilling for oil in the boom years after WW I, the 4 brothers used explosives to crack open safes all over the USA and Canada and robbed the banks. Willis' rationale, "We're helping to keep insurance companies in business. If there are no bank robberies then there will be no need for insurance." For reasons I don't understand at all, round safes cannot be opened like rectangular safes, so they eventually had to resort to train robbery. They were eventually caught, tried, and convicted. After serving a little time (max. 5 years) most of them retired to Uvalde, Texas, a small town west of San Antonio and in the "texas Hill Country" so popular with motorcyclists. Most of them lived long lives and died in Uvalde.

Julianna Margolies was excellent as Willis' love interest. They eveidently stayed together into old age, even though they never married.

Pretty good film.

I watched this on DVD because it was recommended by Jonathan Rosenbaum on his ten-best list for the year, and the cast interested me, especially D'Onofrio and Skeet Ulrich. This confirms my admiration of the under-seen Ulrich, who's the doubting, conscience-stricken brother. His uneasiness stands out against the tedious good-old-boy jollity of the others. That shtick is a little too easy to do, and I don't think it gets the Twenties quite right, really. Rosenbaum is a great film critic but his end of the year recommendations are not always to be trusted, which makes you wonder about how written-in-stone his 1000 films list is. He also said that since the expansive images were a big part of the pleasure of the movie he didn't know how good it would be on DVD.

Gosh, was it really so easy to rob a bank in those days? The way some of the robberies go makes it look like it was all a cinch, but surely they'd be scared sometimes because you still stood to go to jail for it, maybe for a good long time. Actually it was easy to robe banks with square-doored safes, and it isn't so hard to hold up a little bank today.

This is surprising from Linklater not only because of the step into genre, but because of his willingness to glorify and simplify his good-boy/bad-boy crew. Where are the tormented and confused guys of his stoner movies? Matthew McConaughey certainly does rise to the challenge with a spirited and enthusiastic performance, but all his moments are still clichés. Hawke similarly grins and giggles in a quite shallow way. His character is not well defined and D'Onofiro, arguably the best actor of the bunch, is wasted. Statistically the Newton bank robbers were remarkable, but Ebert may be right that they are less famous than Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde because they were too "respectable," i.e., dull. The screenplay lacks an angle, other than the glib one of boys on a lark, which fails to convince, and even when things go wrong, lacks a tragic dimension.

The action is desultory, lacking a strong focus on character or action or any guiding principle. Hence comparison with 'Bonnie and Clyde,' or more dashing adventures in the same vein like 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' or 'The Sting,' simply isn't really possible. This isn't in the same league. It utterly pales in comparison to European robbery films like 'Rififi' or the recent 'Mesrine' gangster epic starring Vincent Cassel. Only the few moments with Dwight Yoakam as Brentwood Glasscock, the brothers' explosives expert, provide a welcome 'Rififi'-like hint of bank-robbing as a challenging activity requiring certain skills and techniques.

This is not to say you can't have fun watching. These young actors are in their physical prime, and that includes the ladies, notably the handsome-looking Julianna Margulies as McConaughey's girlfriend. The period flavor is sometimes ripe and tasty. The production is very good-looking, and there is some nice cinematography: a silhouetted image of the mail train the Newton brothers are about to rob is particularly cool. The whole cadre things are set in, including the jaunty music, is conventional, but it's undeniably fun. The movie's a little long, but the climactic later scenes are involving. But still, this is very far from Linklater at his best, and Rosenbaum ought to admit he erred in ranking it so high.

History is history and Hollywood is well...Hollywood. This is a fact-based drama that chronicles the exploits of the bank robbing Newton brothers(Matthew McConaughey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ethan Hawke and Skeet Ulrich)who robbed over eight banks from Texas to Toronto in the 20's and 30's. Along with them a friend(Dwight Yoakam)who knew his way with nitro.This makes for exciting explosions on screen with clouds of money to go with gunshot blasts and whining getaway cars. The prolonged career in crime is capped off with a three million dollar mail train heist outside Chicago. This finally landed the boys in a court room and behind bars. By all means don't walk out on the closing credits for you get to find out what happened to each of the principle players. Also in the cast are: Julianna Margulies, Charles Gunning, Chloe Webb and Casey McAuliffe. There is the claim that the Newton boys never killed a soul during their robbing the bigger thieves...the banks.

In a way, it seems like a waste to gather Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D'Onofrio for this movie, because they should've been able to do something great, although, if it weren't for them, it would have been boring. It is a straightforward assembly of the facts of the incredible run of 80 bank robberies by the Newton brothers. Then they go for the big one, a train robbery of Federal Reserve funds. It is entertaining, but I was most entertained during the running of the credits. Over to the left, they show clips of Joe Newton at about age 79, on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, interspersed with film clips of an interview with Willis Newton in his 80's, both giving their views of what it was like and how they felt about what they had done. After seeing Hollywood's version of their lives, it was interesting to see what they were like in old age.