David Lowrey’s new film The Old Man & the Gun features bank heists, prison breakouts, and police chases, but the movie is at its best as a romance and as a career epitaph.
In August of this year, Robert Redford turned 82. Of his 82 years, Redford has spent nearly 60 of them (58 to be exact) acting. He got his start in theater and television, but made his way into film with movies in the late 1960s. Movies like Barefoot in the Park and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid elevated him from Hollywood newcomer to one of the hottest stars of the time.
In the decades since, Redford has dedicated himself to the art and celebration of movie-making. Sure, he’s got over 70 acting credits to his name, but he’s also a director — known for films like Ordinary People and Quiz Show as well as a writer, producer, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. It’s important to have at least some context for Redford’s lengthy and robust career since it plays such a key role in David Lowrey’s new movie.
In The Old Man & the Gun, Redford delivers his final performance, one that can best be described as a coda for a career full of characters that embody Redford’s unique blend of charm and humanity. He plays Forrest Tucker, an old man who’s spent his entire life robbing banks and breaking out of jail.
Yet there’s something rather odd about Tucker and the specific way he robs banks. There are no violent outbursts, fired bullets, or vulgar outbursts. Instead, Tucker is all smiles and politeness; he gestures to a gun, but never shows it. He asks politely, never rudely. He reassures bank tellers who start to cry as they fill his bag with the dough. Tucker Forrest robs banks with his charm, a technique that leaves his victims in awe.
As Tucker and his two partners (Danny Glover and Tom Waits) make their way from bank to bank, escaping with ease, local detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck) begins to piece together the robberies as a part of a crime spree. Hunt, who begins the movie uninspired and worn out, finds a sense of excitement and fulfillment from chasing after Tucker.
If only that excitement extended to the audience. Despite several bank heists and police chases, The Old Man & the Gun never once comes close to feeling like Bonnie and Clyde. Not that it needs to, but the introduction of the detective’s investigation should, at the very least, introduce some momentum into the chase for Tucker and his friends, or the Over the Hill Gang as they are referred to by the police.
However, Lowrey seems unconcerned with creating a sense of urgency, establishing dramatic stakes, or giving his primary detective any characterization beyond being a husband and father in the midst of a mid-life crisis. As such, this entire subplot feels like it’s just going through the motions to fill time and to establish a foil for Tucker. Unlike Tucker, Hunt feels unsatisfied with his life and career. Unlike Hunt, Tucker rejects conventions like a family or a career, making him absent and unreliable even if not especially dangerous.
The saving grace of the The Old Man & the Gun is the richly drawn, emotionally poignant relationship between Tucker and Jewel, played by Sissy Spacek.
At the beginning of the movie, as Tucker is driving away from the scene of a robbery, he pulls over to the side of the highway to help a woman whose car has broken down. Unlike Affleck’s character, who feels inserted into the movie out of sheer obligation, Spacek’s character and performance offers something much different.
Jewel reminds the audience, and Tucker, of the real world and of a regular life. Her presence in Tucker’s narrative offers a balance to his. With an open heart, a friendly smile, and a healthy dose of skepticism, Jewel gets to know Tucker in a way that is almost, if not entirely, divorced from his law breaking tendencies. While Tucker’s crimes may be the defining characteristic of his identity — to him, to the police, to the folks watching the news — Jewel exists in a sphere all her own.
If Robert Redford’s role in The Old Man & the Gun serves as a metanarrative about the end of his career, then Sissy Spacek’s role as Jewel is a reminder that the careers of esteemed and famous actors don’t always matter to regular people.
Jewel begins the movie oblivious to Tucker’s real identity. As such, she gets to know him as a person first, not a famous bank robber or escaped San Quentin prisoner. It’s not until much later that Tucker’s history is explained to her. We see every one of Tucker’s prison breakouts played out in a montage, no doubt meant to mimic a rundown of Redford’s own movie career.
It’s from this very genuine place, the new romance and companionship shared between two strangers, that The Old Man & the Gun derives its most meaningful and captivating moments. Through these two characters, the movie explores what it’s like to meet someone at the end of your life and the joy of finding solace from loneliness. The strength of the Spacek and Redford duo will leave you wishing they’d make a dozen more movies together where they are free to just talk to one another.
In fact, the best scene in the movie is just that: Jewel and Tucker sharing a meal together. After he picks her up on the side of the road, they have lunch at a local diner. There’s a playfulness to their conversation that emanates with warmth and kindness. Tucker and Jewel’s relationship is not just a stirring depiction of a rare kind of intimacy, but it also helps contextualize Tucker’s love for robbing banks.
The Old Man & the Gun may not be a particularly good crime movie, but it is an incredible story about the way things end. Spacek and Redford are a perfectly matched pair that breathe life into a story that might otherwise feel trivial.