The Old Man and the Gun

It’s been quite the career for Robert Redford, ain’t it? From Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Three Days of the Condor to The Natural to The Horse Whisperer to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the man has kept on keeping on for decades, always excellent, somehow just as charismatic and sexy as when he started out. It’s a shame he’s allegedly stepping down from cinema, but if he’s serious about retirement, The Old Man and the Gun is a fantastic capstone to his legendary CV.

Coming from writer/director David Lowery (who’s done some interesting work so far with A Ghost Story, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, and the remake of Pete’s Dragon), based on a story in the New Yorker by David Grann (who also penned the source material for Dark Crimes and The Lost City of Z), the story is the tail-end of the tale of one Forrest Tucker, pretty much a lifelong thief and prison-breaker. Along with his crew-mates, Tucker travels the heartland robbing banks. Not unlike a senior version of Lupin III, he even has the absolute balls and ability to openly mock his pursuing law enforcement officer, occasionally to his face. Meanwhile, he becomes sweet on one Jewel, whom he meets while aiding her with her ailing car on the side of the highway during a getaway, and the two begin something of a romance, though the whole bank-robbing gig may just be taking up more of his interest.

Redford is at his charismatic best here, not losing a step from any point in his career. We totally buy that this old man can just stroll into a bank, motion toward his gun, fleece the joint, and make a clean escape, most of it without even breaking a sweat. Tom Waits and Danny Glover are also strong as Tucker’s successful crew, and Casey Affleck almost seems to enjoy his pursuit of Tucker, even while constantly being shown up by the thief. Sissy Spacek is a treat as Jewel, and her chemistry with Redford is so strong that I was shocked to discover they’d never worked together on-screen before.

Lowery doesn’t do anything crazy or avant-garde with his vision here, instead crafting something akin to a visual folk tale, The Legend of Forrest Tucker, as though it could be told alongside the stories of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill – or, more appropriately, John Dillinger. The cinematography is clean, the editing is slickly invisible, the whole narrative is communicated so clearly and plainly that we’re allowed to drink in and savor the entertaining characters blooming before our eyes.

At the end of the day, The Old Man and the Gun is just a goddamn delight from all angles. I highly recommend it to pretty much everybody, ‘cause there’s bound to be something to make you smile here. If this is really the last we’re gonna be seeing of Redford on the big screen, I’m thrilled it was in such a pleasant, entertaining caper, a fitting punctuation for a living legend.