"The Old Man & the Gun": review

Billed as Robert Redford's swan song, 2018's "The Old Man & the Gun" is the inspired-by-reality tale of Forrest Tucker, a career "gentleman" bank robber and prison escape artist who broke out of the pokey sixteen times from the 1930s to the early 1980s. Tucker is chased by the aptly named detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck), a world-weary husband and father of two who has lost his passion for the work he does. Tucker falls for Jewel (Sissy Spacek), a woman he meets at random as he's driving away from one of his robberies.

We don't actually learn Forrest's first name until much later in the film. Forrest lies to Jewel when he first meets her, giving her a fake name, but otherwise laying on his roguish charm. Jewel is Forrest's opposite: where Forrest has a roving spirit and has gotten used to living outside the bounds of the law, Jewel is settled and content with life on her small ranch. She remains open to trying new things, though, and it may be that Forrest represents, to her, a glimpse of that adventurous life. Forrest plays a sort of "just kidding" game with Jewel, alternately confessing to her that he's a bank robber and telling her he's nothing of the sort. Hunt, meanwhile, slowly puts the pieces together as he figures out who Forrest really is, racing against time because the FBI plans to take the case away from him.

Forrest works with a team of aged robbers, whom the news media dub "The Over the Hill Gang." Teddy Green (Danny Glover) met Forrest when both were locked up in San Quentin. Waller (the incredible Tom Waits) is the movie's growly, grouchy comic relief, at one point telling a hilarious anecdote that explains why he hates Christmas. The group members work well together, but they're itching to move up from "penny-ante" bank robberies to something bigger: a heist in which they lift some actual gold bars along with their usual haul of cash.

The movie plays with our feelings of nostalgia. Most of the "present" action occurs in 1981, when Forrest is an old man near 80. Those of us who have grown up since that time will watch this film and pine for the days before we all lived within the confines of a surveillance state: Forrest's robberies, always committed calmly and with a smile, would not be possible in today's environment of ubiquitous cameras and satellite tracking. The movie also invites us to see the story as a kind of review of Robert Redford's film career: at one point, there's even a "flashback" that shows us a quick clip of Redford from one of his older films, thereby neatly dodging the digital de-aging technique that has become so en vogue with current films featuring old actors. The film's point—one of its points, anyway—seems to be "the old man's still got it."

Technically, the film is constructed to feel retro. It has a 70s- or 80s-era pace to it; the dialogue is quiet and unhurried, like its main characters. The cinematography gives us mostly cloudy days, plus beautiful vistas of an America that, from the vantage of the early 2000s, exists mostly in memory. The musical score at times has a jazzy, heist-y feel, but during a flashback to one particular car chase between Forrest and the police, the music swells to a glorious crescendo, which I took to mean that we were looking into Forrest's heart and seeing his lust for life, his desire to keep on moving, and to keep on coloring outside the strict lines of society. I'd love to talk with my buddy Charles about whether Forrest—the character in this movie and not the real-life person—might count as a sort of trickster figure, sowing a certain amount of chaos, thumbing his nose at the law and the very notion of lawful behavior, while doing so in a defiantly amoral way. I don't think trickster figures generally flirt with the notion of domesticity, but I also don't think it's a spoiler to suggest to you, Dear Reader, that you already know how Forrest is going to react when Jewel decides to let him fully into her life.

Forrest isn't presented as a redistributive Robin Hood who does what he does out of a sense of justice: Forrest robs banks because that's what makes him feel alive. As John Hunt continues to chase him down, Forrest even takes the time to leave Hunt a "good luck" message on a bit of money. It's a taunt, but a gentle one. Hunt, who comes to understand Forrest's uncynical pleasure in doing what he does, begins to take more pleasure in his detective work.

All the actors do a fine job in their roles. Tom Waits, whom many of a certain age will know best as a musician, not an actor, has somehow managed to snag for himself some quirky movie roles. Waits was a nutball Renfield in 1992's "Bram Stoker's Dracula," and recently, he had a role in "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" (also 2018), which I have yet to see. He does hilarious work in this movie. Danny Glover gives us a subtle turn as Teddy; Sissy Spacek has aged gracefully into her role as Jewel, striking a balance between happy and sad. Casey Affleck plays a character who is just turning forty; his interactions with his loving wife Maureen (Tika Sumpter) are some of the movie's warmest moments. Redford, who is now 83, inhabits the character of Forrest Tucker like a comfortable suit.

As I mentally cast about for a movie to compare this one to, I thought of Clint Eastwood's "The Mule." That movie also featured a cat-and-mouse dynamic between an old man and a young lawman (Bradley Cooper). But whereas that film carried an underlying tension because we were never sure when Eastwood's Earl Stone might finally get caught, "The Old Man & the Gun" has a much more playful spirit: just who is the cat, and who is the mouse?

Like many other reviewers, I was charmed by the story told by Redford and writer-director David Lowery. At the same time, I couldn't help thinking about the destructive nature of people like Forrest Tucker: the lives they ruin, the stress and fear they cause, the trail of disappointment they leave in their irresponsible wake. As a culture, we Americans have a tendency to idolize and cheer for rogues, but it's important to remember that such idolization is best reserved for the movies, not for real life, where disregard for the boundaries that allow for peaceful coexistence can have actual, devastating consequences. All in all, I recommend this movie, but I think you'll end up having some complicated feelings by the time the story ends. And maybe that's the point. And maybe that's the note on which Robert Redford would like to say goodbye to his legendary acting career.