The Highwaymen

Netflix once again stumbled upon a good director and a solid premise. Add in the superb acting performance by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson and you will think that a quality viewing experience is guaranteed. Too bad that given its two-and-a-half-hour running time, the film is very slow-paced, which in the second half of the movie becomes quite a hindrance. Anyhow, the premise is great. I liked it. It’s definitely worth watching. Several scenes are really wonderful, but cutting it short by an hour wouldn’t hurt. (04/18/2019)

An old-school classic. The film starts off slowly, trying to give viewers a closer look at the two main characters, which I consider important when you're going to spend a good amount of time with them. Some might find this pacing problematic, and I would understand that, but I quickly got used to this style. I guess I expected Bonnie and Clyde to get more screen time, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Otherwise, Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson were great; the scene with Woody in the bathroom was definitely a highlight of the film (a bit of a shame they hinted at it in the trailers). These actors have charisma to spare, which added credibility to their characters (though I still can’t shake the feeling that if the film had been made in the 80s with Newman and Redford, it would have been on a whole different level). The dialogue was excellent, and the atmosphere of the 1930s was palpable in every shot. Don’t expect much action; the film doesn’t try to be anything other than a solid drama. But strong moments do come, whether it’s the scene with the murdered policemen or the final showdown, which certainly wasn’t shy with the bullets. I recommend it, and also suggest reading up on the real Hamer and Gault. It’s worth it. I give the film 80%. (04/22/2019)

Really genuine “too old for this shit" classical, old school, Western in a long time. And the fact that it takes place in 1930s when the economic crisis is in full swing and the cars are covering endless distances instead of horses, doesn´t change it at all. Slowly (I really mean very slowly) flowing, based on the central duo, beautifully captured and played. It's openly “McCarthy's" style, that´s for sure. In other words, it´s seemingly “only" genre movie with melancholic ambiance that is hard to resist. Its captivating (non) pace will either put you to sleep reliably or enchant you completely. (03/29/2019)

This was so terribly ordinary, I'd be hard pressed to find a more mediocre film. Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson play two retired rangers who are called in to catch criminals who go around killing people on sight. The problem is that we don't get any info about the two protagonists or their background, so we as viewers can't build any kind of relationship with them, and we don't get any scraps of information about the two bad guys anyway; we don't even see them on screen until the end, so we don't really know who they are. The result is a two-hour wandering from place to place and just riding on inertia until the end, which can't even be called a finale, because nothing happens there either. And so I ask, what was the film supposed to give us? Visually and technically, it is "okay" and the acting is also okay (although frankly neither Costner nor Harrelson have much work with, as apart from their occasional dialogues and cold faces we get almost nothing), but the script is just incredibly dry and punishingly empty. Very poor. (03/24/2024)

Nice but bland, The Highwaymen is a safe bet. Any hopes of originality for this version of the famous story die in the first third with the clichéd exposition of the main characters. And the rest of the movie does nothing to counter this assumption. But it’s not boring - Costner and Harrelson hold the movie together with their performances and Costner’s talk with Bonnie’s dad (William Sadler) goes deeper. The final shootout wasn’t all that hair-raising in real life, so the movie cannot have the epic climax that a flick in this genre needs. (04/17/2019)