Bank robbery with panache is what The Old Man & the Gun is all about. The “mostly true” story adapted from a New Yorker article begins as its outlaw hero, Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford), dressed for business in a blue suit and hat, shows a teller his gun and politely requests her to fill his brief case with cash. Tucker pulls off his fake mustache as he speeds away and by the time wailing police sirens descend on the crime scene, he’s switched cars and is larking down the highway. Gallantly, he pulls over when he spots a woman in distress and gives the vivacious Jewel (Sissy Spacek) a ride.
Do they fall in love? It’s more like a caring friendship between people whose hearts have grown wary.
With The Old Man & the Gun, Redford puts a coda on a career built in part around likeable, root-for-them outlaws. It’s the Sundance Kid and The Sting’s Johnny “Kelly” Hooker grown old. A knowing yet kindly smile often lights the lined face of the aging bank robber whose victims invariably describe him as “a gentleman” and “happy.”
The “mostly true” back story is sketched in: Tucker’s been in reformatories and penitentiaries since age 13, has escaped many times and is currently on the lam after sailing from San Quentin on a boat he constructed in the prison workshop. Somehow in between prison breaks, he found time for a wife and two kids, but that was long ago.
How did he become such a nice fellow after spending most of his life behind bars? That’s a mystery The Old Man & the Gun doesn’t address.
Tucker has co-conspirators in several heists, including cautious Teddy (Danny Glover) and wisecracking Waller (Tom Waits), but his sidekicks steal no scenes. Tucker is pursued by police detective John Hunt, played without much sizzle by Casey Affleck. The chemistry sparks brightest between Tucker and Jewel in their humorous tolerance of one another. It’s a fetching picture of friendship in old age.
Directed by Milwaukee-born David Lowery, a Sundance graduate whose eclectic resume includes the excellent kid’s movie Pete’s Dragon and the gritty crime drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. The Old Man & the Gun tells its thinly constructed story efficiently. In its best moments, it becomes almost elegiac as Tucker-Redford contemplates his life. If it’s not the summit of Redford’s long career as an actor, The Old Man & the Gun is a decent final act.
