The Newton Boys (1998)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Newton Boys (1998) – R. Linklater

This was one of director Richard Linklater’s first big-budget Hollywood films and you can tell that he is having a ball experimenting with some cool shots and techniques.  The cast (including Linklater favourites Matthew McConaughey and Ethan Hawke) also seem to be enjoying themselves, verging on the hammy at times.  But but but…the film itself is only humdrum; the fun behind the scenes doesn’t really translate to fun on the screen.  McConaughey is a bank robber in the early 1920s who recruits his brothers (Hawke but also Skeet Ulrich and Vincent D'Onofrio) to join him and they become the most successful bank robbers in U. S. history (the film is based on a true story).  Linklater does a nice job with the period sets and costumes and the plot is fine, if conventional.  Julianna Margulies is the love interest (without much to do) and Dwight Yoakam and Chloe Webb are accomplices.  At the end, a couple of real Newton brothers are shown (one with Johnny Carson) over the end credits. Perhaps Linklater needed to show he could handle the budget in order to have permission to continue with his more interesting projects; that said, he still seems to alternate between mainstream flicks (School of Rock, Bad News Bears, Me and Orson Welles) and the weirder/experimental/conceptual stuff that is so much better (Slacker, Midnight Trilogy, A Scanner Darkly, Boyhood).  But he is definitely someone to follow.