The Old Man & The Gun (2018)

Based on an article written for The New Yorker in 2003 by David Grann, The Old Man And The Gun is the ‘mostly’ true story of Forrest Tucker, a sexagenarian recidivist bank-robber and escape artist. He’s played, in what the actor has suggested may be his last screen role, by Robert Redford. His robberies are conducted in a style that closely resembles how Redford wins over his audience; he starts by calming walking up to the bank-teller’s counter, or over to a managerial type, and, with his impeccable manners and ensorcelling charisma, explains that a robbery is taking place, and flashes his coat open to suggest that he’s armed. The staff fill his bag and out he goes.

With his earpiece tracking the messages over police radios, he flees the scene as calmly as he arrived. While on a highway, he notices a small truck parked off to the side of the road, so he stops, ever the gentlemen (and because the police were in pursuit), and assists. The owner of the truck is Jewel (Sissy Spacek), and Forrest drives her to a diner for her trouble. There is a lovely badinage shared between the two, shot in a virtuosic mixture of close-up, shot reverse shot, and two shot which mirrors the ebb and flow of the conversation. He’s evasive about the vagaries of his profession, and while he makes something of a confession, he never declares himself outright. Whether she knows or not is one of the film’s delicate mysteries. The two begin a romance.

After a spree of robberies, the police are finally catching up with Forrest; detective John Hunt (Casey Affleck) is doggedly investigating the life of the man he suspects to be the leader of a trio, dubbed the ‘Over-the-Hill’ gang because of their age — the supporting pair are Teddy (Danny Glover) and Waller (Tom Waits).

This was as pleasurable an experience in a cinema as I’ve had all year. Shot on 16mm film, every frame The Old Man And The Gun is a finely textured joy. The sequences of the robberies — and later, the getaways — are musically inflected, and make a delightful cinematic point of establishing their rhythms. But the final word has to be Redford’s. In a quiet, restful moment, he thinks back to his youth, if he could know what he grew up to be, and asks: “Would he have been proud of me?” Sometimes a film is its own best critic. That’s a superb explanation for Tucker’s life, his energy, his compulsive desire to live his life in a way that pleases him.

If this is Redford’s final film, how fitting that it should utilise, play upon, and vivify his star persona, created through the body of work, and the features of a typical Redford performance: His handsome face, confident walk, shining eyes, charming manner, and close-mouthed grin. For 95 minutes, I don’t think I stopped smiling.