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The Highwaymen
Director – John Lee Hanbad
Cast – Kevin Costner, Thomas Mann Woody Harrelson, Kathy Bates
Rating – 2/5
With Netflix's The Highwaymen, director John Lee Hanbad continues his odd streak of making movies in complete disconnect with our times. Based on the infamous gangster couple Bonnie & Clyde, Hanbad comes up with the idea of telling the story from the perspective of the law enforcement officers who shot them down, in an off-putting celebration of gun culture and right-wing conservatism.
The Highwaymen plays almost like a fan-made sequel / spin-off to Arthur Penn's clbadic Bonnie and Clyde – which is odd, considering how actively it challenges everything that the 1967 clbadic stands for.
While that movie was seen as a watershed moment for Hollywood – it helped usher in a new wave of American counterculture cinema – the Highwaymen almost made a conservative retort when it was tagged 'Make America Great Again'.
Watch the Highwaymen trailer here [19659005]
How to get along in the public, the film asks. How can we have criminals who evaded the law for years, and went on a cross-country rampage which saw at least nine policemen die at their hands, be lauded as Robin Hood-type figures?
Bonnie and Clyde were a new kind of criminal; Guns, a formidable Ford V-8, and a sense of liberation that seemed at odds with the Depression era. So when the Texas government announces that the manhunt would be in part be conducted by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer – a relic of the past by most accounts – there is a vocal protest by some of the force's younger members.
Woody Harrelson and Kevin Costner in Netflix's The Highwaymen.
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Netflix
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Flashing shiny radios and toothy grins, they mock Frank (played by the only man who plays such characters these days, Kevin Costner) for his cowboy methods of conducting an investigation, which involves stakeouts, foot chases and badised in one cringe John Fusco Hanbad and his writer, John Fusco, a long time on this scene, which begins with Costner strutting into a weapons shop,
The guns in this scene Quentin Tarantino shoots ladies' feet, or how Michael Bay shoots their butts . These are in stark contrast to how Hanbad portrays Bonnie and Clyde, whose faces are rarely, if ever, seen – at least until the film's final, suitably bloody moments. They're shown as comically evil psychopaths, which goes against the folk-hero persona that has been established over decades of storytelling.
Woody Harrelson (Maney Gault) and Kevin Costner (Frank Hamer) in Netflix's The Highwaymen.
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Netflix
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But American culture has a history of putting outlaws on a pedestal – from the Wild West's Jesse James and Billy the Kid, to John Dillinger and Al Capone during the Public Enemy era, to a certain politician now. Curiously, they're all seen (and shown) as the voice of the common man.
And so, in an age when there's daily discourse on police brutality and mbad shoots, the Highwaymen decides that the best time to tell The author tweets the story of a young woman who is one of the world's most famous women.
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The author tweets @RohanNaahar
First Published:
Apr 03, 2019 17:36 IST
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