The Old Man & the Gun

Robert Redford’s raised a lot of hell. Prison breaks, auda­cious heists, train rob­beries – in a career span­ning 50 years, he has left an indeli­ble mark on Hol­ly­wood. David Low­ery seems all too aware of this, and in cast­ing Red­ford as gen­tle­man bankrob­ber For­rest Tuck­er in The Old Man & the Gun, he’s cre­at­ed a rather love­ly film in dia­logue with every­thing its cen­tral star has done before.

Based on a New York­er arti­cle about a career crim­i­nal who just couldn’t stop doing the one thing he loved, Lowery’s film is a warm-heart­ed por­trait of an excep­tion­al­ly charm­ing man who just hap­pens to rob banks, and those that came to know him in the sparkling twi­light years of his remark­able life. Low­ery doesn’t seek to admon­ish or pass any judge­ment on Tuck­er, but instead cap­ture some­thing of his strange celebrity.

If the stakes seem excep­tion­al­ly low for a film about a bankrob­ber, it’s because Low­ery is more inter­est­ed in the tit­u­lar old man than the gun (which is nev­er actu­al­ly fired, by the way).“I’m not talk­ing about mak­ing a liv­ing,” explains Tuck­er, when asked about his com­pul­sive crim­i­nal­i­ty. ​“I’m talk­ing about liv­ing.” The banks are the jour­ney for Tuck­er rather than the des­ti­na­tion, and sim­i­lar­ly, Low­ery is as inter­est­ed in Redford’s endur­ing celebri­ty as is he is the char­ac­ter he’s play­ing this time around – archive pho­tographs and footage of a young Red­ford in The Chase dri­ve that mes­sage home.

Sis­sy Spacek stars oppo­site Red­ford as Jew­el, a wid­owed ranch own­er who encoun­ters Tuck­er in the ear­ly ​’80s by pure coin­ci­dence and falls for his charms while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly nev­er real­ly believ­ing a word he says. Over the years they peri­od­i­cal­ly meet again, and the best scenes in the film are their din­er exchanges where they talk about their lives. There’s easy and com­pelling chem­istry between Spacek and Red­ford, but it’s made all the more poignant giv­en the weight of their respec­tive careers.

Mean­while, Casey Affleck is (the apt­ly named) detec­tive John Hunt, who’s charged with bring­ing For­rest to jus­tice. We glimpse his own life with wife Mau­reen (Tika Sumpter) and their cute chil­dren – a very dif­fer­ent tra­jec­to­ry from old rolling stone Tuck­er. Just as For­rest can’t seem to quit his law­break­ing ways, Hunt can’t get used to the qui­et life, and is trou­bled by the lack of inter­est his col­leagues have in appre­hend­ing his adversary.

The unmis­tak­able Tom Waits and Dan­ny Glover also crop up as Tucker’s accom­plices, and the pitch-per­fect cast­ing of these (and oth­er) small­er roles serves to cap­ture a sense of the wider world Tuck­er inhab­its – specif­i­cal­ly, the lives he’s changed by virtue (or to the detri­ment) of his mere existence.

Hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly brought us films about lone­ly ghosts and a young boy’s rela­tion­ship with a gen­tle drag­on, Lowery’s lat­est fea­ture proves his wide-rang­ing tal­ent as a film­mak­er, but also under­lines an impor­tant com­mon theme con­nect­ing his work: the unique pow­er and poignan­cy of sto­ry­telling. Like a bowl of chick­en noo­dle soup when you’re ill, or a loved one wait­ing with a smile at the air­port arrivals hall, The Old Man & the Gun is a balm for the soul.