Band of Robbers

Attempting to adapt Mark Twain's most beloved characters into a modern day story seems like an audacious and terrible idea. But, surprisingly, the indie film "Band of Robbers" manages to pull it off. It has completely captured the essence of the character Tom Sawyer with all of his unrelenting energy, immaturity and imagination. True to form, this 'adult' version of Tom continues to travel through some fantastical version of life, with his every action propelled by a thirst for adventure and glory. In less talented hands Tom might have come off as obnoxious or unrealistic, but Adam Nee is so charming as Tom that he makes you WANT to believe that a person like this can exist. If you have never read Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer" or "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," you will have no problem jumping in and enjoying this quirky and fun-loving caper. But if you have read the books, you will be all that much more impressed with what writers and directors Aaron and Adam Nee have achieved.

Band Of Robbers( 2015) is a quirky modern day take on the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. If I had to describe this film in one word, it would be eccentric. I mean that in a good way. Its a great balance between zany comedy and heartfelt drama. However, I can't ignore the problems. Certain things happen in the movie that are completely illogical. Those things only occur so they can push the movie forward. This happens frequently throughout the movie. It can be quite frustrating at times. Also, several intriguing characters are either underwritten or underused. Especially Hannibal Buress' character, Ben Rogers. I loved every scene he was in. While it does have its apparent problems, Band Of Robbers still manages to give you a warm feeling at the end of the movie. Heartfelt, with a truly great message.

This could have went so wrong. I'm thinking of when they did this in Hook and turn Peter Pan into an adult, but Band of Robbers works really well.

The acting was superb. So was the writing. From the moment you see Huck Finn and Tom on the screen you got the feeling of two dudes who never out grew who they were as children and it was fantastic.

Tom and Huck still looking for treasure and adventure and they seem not to care about who gets in there way.

As a whole, the movie was a great expedience to watch. It was a quirky funny and a little dark.

Mark Twain fans might be slightly disappointed by the portrayals of their favorite characters but it's best to see it as more as a modern day homage to the books than anything else.

Also a heavy dose of crude humor, it's a comedy of errors first and formost more so than the epic adventures of the books it is inspired by.

Set in present time our dear Huckleberry Finn is a ex con and Tom Sawyer is his childhood friend who ended up becoming a police officer, albeit for no noble reasons.

Kyle Gallner is always good and he is definitely the best actor in this film and delivers a lowkey but very good performance as Huck, Adam Nee is entertaining as Tom but his character is pretty one dimensional... But so are most of the other characters.

After seeing Stephen Lang being absolutely brilliant in 'DON'T BREATHE (2016)' I must say I was a little let down by his (too) mild performance in this one.

But overall the performances are good enough.

There were a couple times where I thought they should have wrote this or that differently in the script but overall the plot is also good enough.

So yeah overall, no masterpiece but... good enough 6.5/10.

Classic characters from perhaps the greatest literary work of American literature, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer have hit the big screen, in a re-imagining that takes their mischievously- intentioned, hero-of-the-story selves, keeps a driving plot about finding a mythic treasure, and leaves the rest behind – and to good-spirited, well-earned fun in the new film, 'Band of Robbers'.

It should be stated early, there's not a whole lot that 'Robbers' truly, truly, lifts from Mark Twain's classic novel or characters other than using the characters' likeliness and winning charms to drop them into this new culture mash-up. It's really just the story of a version of a Huck Finn (Kyle Gallner) and a Tom Sawyer (Adam Nee), where Huck is a recent prison release looking to make clean and Tom is a wily cop whose adventure-seeking ways leads to his character's charming but still law-skirting flirtations, and through this all, they still remain the best of friends, along with a band of other self-affirmed misfit pirate pals.

The faces and talents enlisted here are truly where the comedy shines. It has the taste of 21 Jump Street comic-firing and timing of every-line-a-joke (and mostly bulls eye's at that), uses some familiar faces and some not-so, in playing a winning hand. Kyle Gallner as Huck is a Jeremy Renner and Rick Grimes a la The Walking Dead, where Adam Nee is as much as stand- out in a role that he knows so well. The geek-beloved Matthew Gray Gubler as Joe Harper, along with Hannibal Burress as Ben Rogers add a deep bench to the effort, with Burress (and "Greg…Knife" nailing every one of his scenes). Melissa Benoist and Eric Christian Olsen also star as little-used Becky Thatcher, Tom's new partner on the day of the planned heist (mention heist) and Sid Sawyer, beloved detective who plays it maybe a bit too straight.

Written and directed by brother filmmaking team Aaron and Adam Nee, 'Robbers' went through many years of development (including an idea of it being a TV show) before finally having its world premiere at the LA Film Festival. One wonders what following that version of Huck, Tom, and company may have been like, and what many adventures they may have spun in and out of in sit-com fashion. But its final format of a ninety-five-minute feature film feels like the best use of its talent, sparing any over-indulgence in what could have flopped as a gimmick and succeeds as a send-up that breathes fresh life into an American classic.