The Highwaymen: film review

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from a story telling standpoint, it reminds one of the old time films when telling a story and character development was key to the film.

In this case, it is about calling back retired Texas Rangers to eliminate a dangerous gang who had shot quite a few law enforcement officials, not to mention innocent civilians in robberies.

The film does not glamourize the killers, who are seen killing cops and the innocent, nor does it glamourize the two men tasked to hunt them down.

The Texas Rangers had been disbanded for dispensing rough justice ... in frontier days such things might have been tolerated, but that by the 1930s was considered wrong.

Yet when Bonnie and Clyde's murderous killing/robbery spree had caused enough anger, the Governor finally decided that maybe rough and ready justice might be the answer and called two ex Texas Rangers out of retirement.

One point in the take down of the criminals is that they had eluded police capture several times because essentially they used combat weapons, not the usual guns of civilian criminals. So one scene shows Frank Hamer buying weapons and ammunition. But the main story is the interaction of the two characters, and how the two rangers figure out where they will be going by checking out the behavior pattern of the crime duo, and plan to ambush them.

So who shot first? Sort of beside the point: Because hesitation after shouting a warning would merely have resulted in more dead policemen, something that today's human rights types don't want to acknowledge.

in some way this is an old fashioned film, because usually Hollywood and the MSM usually glamourizes drug dealers and killers, while the MSM often twists stories of those who try to keep the peace as being the bad guys.

Yet the film acknowledges that Hamer and Gaut are not shiny boyscouts, but hardened lawmen who have killed before and would kill again, seeing the criminals as predators to be eliminated. There is a poignant scene that emphasizes this, when Clyde's father meets Hamer and acknowledges that his son will be have to be killed because he won't surrender to the law, but then relates how his son turned criminal, and the two men ponder the small deeds that altered the paths of life of both cop and criminal.

A satisfying film, not fancy with special effects, but essentially a low key character study.

AmericanCatholicBlog has an essay on the film, and on the main character LINK The summary says it all:

Kostner and Harrelson provide a highly entertaining look at Depression Era America in rural Texas and the birth of modern celebrity mania, which turned two murderous outlaws into the darlings of all too many Americans who should have known better.

of course, the WAPO complained that the film "whitewashed" the men's careers, but never mind.

Reality is a bit messy, and those who lament rough justice ignore that the alternative might not be "sweetness and light" but a lot more innocent people killed.