1998 / 113 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

I don’t think I have ever seen a movie that glamorizes the life of a bank robber the way that “The Newton Boys” does. After seeing this movie, you might just be tempted to go out and rob a bank. The Newtons make it look so easy, so flawless, so downright FUN, that you hardly realize what they are doing is highly illegal.

I am conflicted here, because I don’t really know that you could call that praise. It falls sorta in the tradition of the movies that Burt Reynolds used to do back in the Seventies, where he ran moonshine and drove recklessly with a smile and a wink in his eye. I wonder how many parents of a bad driving teen have no further to look than Burt’s film canon to know why their son or daughter is a hellion behind the wheel. But anyway, getting back to “The Newton Boys”, the film is, after all, the story of the most successful bank robbers in United States history. They were amazing safe crackers, smooth con men. They knew how to slide their way out of most dangerous situations, although toward the end we see that all luck eventually runs out. Even the most sunny hucksters eventually get their wings clipped. But this is only a small part of the movie. Most of it shows how the Newtons robbed banks with the same amount of flair that a guy like Picasso brought to painting.

A great deal of this has to do with Richard Linklater’s sterling direction. He keeps things moving at a nice pace and sets a lovely tone to the movie. It feels less like a movie than it does like time traveling. The sets are also quite exquisite, recreating the early part of the 20th Century in glorious detail. The music, too, is just right. It is jaunty and often quite rousing and whimsical as well.

Not to mention the performances. Matthew McConaughey (I have to stop liking this guy, I’m tired of having to spell his name) is remarkable here. He has the rascally charm and presence of a young Paul Newman, and he is almost as good here. This is the sort of role that would have gone to Newman about thirty years ago, and Matt is a wonderful heir to the old man’s throne. He is likable and smooth and self-effacing. We can see how a man like this would lead many men to a life of crime, and easily. I have never much cared for Ethan Hawke, but he works here as the most wise-cracking and witty of the brothers. The rest of the brothers suffer in comparison: Vincent D’Onofrio hasn’t got a lot to sink his teeth into, Skeet Ulrich just pouts a lot. But country star Dwight Yoakam does some nice work. And it’s nice to actually see his eyes for a change. Usually they are hidden beneath an ever-present cowboy hat.

The only thing that undermines the movie is, perhaps, an excess of charm. We never get the sense that the Newtons are ever really in danger. Well, okay, we get a hint of it near the end, but not much. We never think that they will do anything but get away with it. But those are the characters that they are playing. That really isn’t a fault of the film. But it does keep me from recommending it as highly as I may. At the very end of the film, we are shown footage of the actual Newton Boys, elderly and frail and yet still proud of their achievements in the criminal realm. What’s more, they seem sorry for none of it. This stuff is truly compelling, and gives us a true sense of who these men really were. We can even see how the men who play them in the movie might have become these men later on in life. After seeing it, however, one can’t help but think that two hours of interviews and documentary narration about this subject might not be more interesting than the Hollywood version.

But still, “The Newton Boys” is damn fine entertainment of a stripe that they just don’t make anymore. What more compliment can I give?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 21st, 2002 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.