The Highwaymen (2019)

(Netflix Streaming, December 2020) There’s an intriguing duality of purpose to The Highwaymen’s premise – not only portraying a historical tale of 1930s policemen on the hunt for criminals, but perhaps more significantly offering the law enforcement side of Bonnie and Clyde as the two lead characters hunt down the folk heroes that inspired the landmark 1967 film. Better yet is finding out that the film features none other than Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson as the dogged Texas Rangers that tracked down the outlaws. Unfortunately for that casting coup, the film itself proves to be… merely adequate. The big-budget historical recreation is convincing, and there’s certainly a sense that the film is trying to stick closely to a hybrid between real-life crime history and the familiarity offered by the Warren Beatty film. Alas, this kind of approach to the material often results in a leaden atmosphere, and The Highwaymen often feels laborious – an excerpt of history that has to be learned rather than a thriller to enjoy. The reverence with which the topic is handled prevents a zippier approach, and while there is nothing specifically wrong in the result, The Highwaymen doesn’t manage to unshackle itself from historical fact – and probably never intended to.