The Old Man & The Gun (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Old Man & The Gun (2018) – D. Lowery

Robert Redford’s goodbye film and director David Lowery treats it as such.  One for the geriatric crowd, I guess, although it doesn’t seem too long ago when Danny Glover, Redford, Sissy Spacek, and even Tom Waits were in their prime.  OK, scratch that – it was long ago but we’ve all aged together.  But Redford is really old here, as a bank robber (based on a real story) who can’t give up the life of crime even well into his seventies.  (In fact, Redford is already 80 plus).  I selected this on an international flight, seeking something easy and indeed it was.  Not much of a challenge to any viewer.  We have Casey Affleck mumbling his way through the part of the police detective on the case (the film is set in 1981 which feels very nostalgic).  He’s in an inter-racial marriage which is interesting but not the focus here.  We have Sissy Spacek as the love interest.  We have Waits and Glover as accomplices. Waits gets to deliver a typical monologue but he’s gone before the film reaches the halfway mark. Keith Carradine is credited but missing in action.  Redford is really the focus and there are quite a few sly references to his movies and his younger self. It’s a bit of fun and rather wistful.  But I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it.