The Old Man & the Gun (2018)
Directed by David Lowery
The true story of Forrest Tucker, from his audacious escape from San Quentin at the age of 70 to an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public. Wrapped up in the pursuit are a detective, who becomes captivated with Forrest’s commitment to his craft, and a woman, who loves him in spite of his chosen profession.
4 connections found
View:
4 films that influenced The Old Man & the Gun
What critics say influenced The Old Man & the Gun
It is inspired by classic Hollywood films, including Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Cool Hand Luke (1967) and The Sting (1973).
It’s a story innately attuned to cinema – think Bonnie and Clyde meets The Bucket List .
It's "On Golden Pond" meets "Bonnie and Clyde."
And yet, there’s a grudging respect for each other, their rivalry harkening back to the father-son relationship of DiCaprio and Hanks in Catch Me If You Can .
There are traces of Catch Me If You Can to their relationship; it’s flirty, loving even, despite not really being properly developed.
That's the long and short of "The Old Man & the Gun," a kind of "Catch Me if You Can" for the old-timers set, with Robert Redford as the world's friendliest, most charming crook.
Catch Me If You Can this isn’t: He is no worthy adversary to Tucker.
Unlike “Catch Me If You Can,” whose colorful main man Frank Abagnale Jr. committed similar wrongdoings — stealing, false identities, evading police — “Old Man” isn’t hilarious or sleek.
Although boasting the same warm humour and absorbing drama that marked out 2017's Last Flag Flying and 2016's Hell or High Water as must-see cinema, The Old Man and the Gun also reminds one of movie experiences from a much earlier era.
Comparatively, the bank robbers in the film Hell or High Water (2016) were empathetic and transcended their criminality.
From Butch Cassidy to the 1974 version of The Great Gatsby (aka the good version), to directing Ordinary People and Quiz Show among others and founding the independent powerhouse that is Sundance, even his more recent efforts like All Is Lost , he has created an enviable cinematic legacy.
Too often, though, he became conventionally heroic (as in All the President’s Men) or suave, pictorial, and opaque (as in The Great Gatsby and Out of Africa).
Redford’s no-nonsense directness and awareness of his WASP-y looks—and how to either play into them or work against them—were used to great effect in The Great Gatsby and Jeremiah Johnson and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men and The Way We Were and The Sting and Three Days of the Condor and Spy Game and The Natural and The Horse Whisperer and All is Lost and Pete’s Dragon and yes, even Captain America: The Winter Soldier.