The Highwayman

Normally I would give a film like this a 1, but because this is such a low budget affair, I gave it one extra 1.

Poorly acted written and directed, I cannot find much to recommend it to to the discerning viewer.

I like this genre of movie, tight action, swashbuckling high links, horse chases, heroic endeavours... Oh wait, there is none of that in this movie. Okay, what you do get is a lame horse, so to speak. I'm not sure if it is the cast or the bad writing, but this movie doesn't feel authentic. The story is so so, if not a little predictable and has a villain that seems to be from another movie altogether.

Sure, I understand low budget constraints so 5/5 for that, but 4/10 is my score.

One thing I noted was the British actors playing the roles in a British story, glad it was not completely ruined by, shall we say, other actors from across the pond. 😃

Conclusion: Not bad and not good; mediocre.

So here's the thing, it's really hard to get a proper read on the seriousness of the film, the best one word I can use to describe this film is soulless, and I won't sugar-coat it: The Highwayman: The Legend of Dick Turpin is so laughable it's extraordinarily bad.

To be fair, the story itself isn't always the issue. There's a vaguely romantic subplot between Turpin and the Earl's daughter that's clearly intended to add depth and tension, but it's hard to invest in when everything around it is so poorly executed. The acting is awful, and bizarre at times.

The performances are delivered with such an odd seriousness that you keep waiting for an over-the-top punchline or some comedy to kick in which it never does.

The storytelling is cheesy, the facial expressions are unintentionally hilarious, the villian is mockingly like a cartoon, and the whole thing feels like it's walking a strange line between parody and sincerity, but without committing to either. I don't like to hate on films too harshly, but after the initial fight scene in the woods at the very beginning, it was painfully clear what kind of ride we were in for.

I could understand this being a school project or amateur indie effort, but how this was funded as a feature-length film, I'll never know.

1/10.

It's cartoonish. If they were going for a parody of the era, they missed the mark by making it AmDram. It feels as though the writing was taken from the pantomime. There's a skirmish between two of the characters and it looks like they're dancing and that's not an exaggeration. The schemes that are supposed to show the ruthlessness of the head-villain are so ludicrous as to be unfathomably bad. Not to spoil anything, but don't watch this, there's a strange scene after strange scene. It very much feels like they intentionally made a terrible film because making it better would have looked like they were trying to make a good film but failed: this way they look like they were trying to make a bad film and in that they have succeeded. It gets worse as it goes on.

Right, well as I stumbled upon this 2022 adventure movie from writer and director Steve Lawson, I was immediately reminiscing having sat and watched the 1979 series "Dick Turpin" when I was a child, and remembering it fondly, of course I opted to sit down and watch "The Highwayman".

Well, I just never did get into the atmosphere of this 2022 movie from Steve Lawson. There was just something fundamental missing from the movie. It was a combination of a lack atmosphere and props that just never brought about the right feel of the era, and a good dose of the storyline being rather mundane and the characters equally mundane. So it was not a great movie experience to watch "The Highwayman".

The storyline told in "The Highwayman", as written by Steve Lawson, just never caught on with me. It was too simplistic and lacking ingredients that would sweep me off of my feet and take me out on the rugged roads of old Britain. So it was a bland narrative that didn't have much of any force or momentum to carry it.

I am sure that the casting choices for "The Highwayman" were adequate, but the actors and actresses had so little material to work with, that they were struggling to keep afloat. A shame really, because I doubt that the actors and actresses here were inadequate. They just simply didn't have the tools available for a monumental performance.

For a historical adventure then "The Highwayman" was very flaccid. It is not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us did, so you don't have to.

My rating of "The Highwayman" lands on a three out of ten stars. Sadly, the movie's cover/poster was actually the best thing about the entire experience.