The Newton Boys

This movie was much better than I expected. Interesting true story told of a band of unusual bank robbers. Almost gentlemen bandits, if you will. McConnaughey, Ulrich, Hawke, and D'Onofrio do a great job with the brother's characters. The end credits are definitely worth watching this for.

"The Newton Boys" begins as an old movie, with old wasted colors, kind of black and white. This is the way we meet the players (what actually are the actors), and together with a very happy music (that also seemed old), the credits are simple; maybe boring. "If the movie is in black and white, I won't watch it", said my friend Matías. In fact, the movie started and it was in colors, and very nice colors by the way.

We see Willis Newton (Matthew McConaughey) and before we notice we are in Texas; with the horses, ranches, and the cowboys that always seem good people when they mostly do bad things. Maybe it is because we love to hear them talking, and the cast of this movie is very convincing in that aspect. Soon Willis encounters two younger guys, riding some difficult horses. These are Jesse and Joe Newton (Ethan Hawke and Skeet Ulrich), also cowboys and Willis' brothers. Now we're living the true story of the Newton Brothers.

With the help of Brentwood Glasscock (Dwight Yoakam), alias Glass, and later with the last brother Dock's (Vincent D'Onofrio) collaboration, Willis and his gang robbed a lot of banks and one train that got them to their end. Well, not their end because, unlike any regular cowboy, the Newtons reached ages surpassing the 70 years.

With his writing partners, director Richard Linklater created his adapted vision of the story, located in the pages of Claude Stanush's book. His own vision of these enchanting cowboys that made up stories to beautiful women, drank a lot and lived a full life. Stanush, Linklater and Clark Walter achieved something wild in terms of screenplay, because I'm not sure if a man could live the situations these characters experience, but who knows? In other cowboy movies like "American Outlaws" these things occur, and it's all about the characters. In "Outlaws" it was the excellent Colin Farrell, now it is a whole talented ensemble.

I'm a fan of Richard Linklater's work. And admirer of his camera, settings, colors...The respect he has for his colorful characters, without caring how surreal they can be at times, when he is telling a real story. Led by McConaughey's Willis (who makes a more charismatic leading man than Farrell), usual in Linklater's filmography, Ethan Hawke follows, in good shape as always; he commits more with Linklater than with any director. Then we have a gifted Skeet Ulrich in one of his most natural and charming performances; he isn't getting many jobs today, but here it was a great work. As always, Vincent D'Onofrio sticks to what is requested of him. It is also to notice Dwight Yoakam's efforts, in his most remarkable appearance; now I won't forget about him. Everyone else fulfills, and the women I was talking about, Louise Brown has an important part, played convincingly by the always good Julianna Margulies.

It was some weeks ago, that a friend of mine told me he did a work about a director's filmography. He had chosen Woody Allen. I hadn't done the work, but he asked me: "Who would you choose?". "Richard Linklater", I answered.

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.

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.

The Newton Boys were a colorful collection of brothers who robbed banks. In this bizarro world I think we're supposed to be inspired by Willis (Matthew McConaughey, Joe (Skeet Ulrich), Jess (Ethan Hawke), and Doc Newton (Vincent D'Onofrio). They managed to rob countless banks and pull off the biggest train robbery in U.S. history, all without killing anyone. Bravo... I guess.