Seth_Rogue_One
Mark Twain fans might be slightly disappointed by the portrayals of their favorite characters but it's best to see it as more as a modern day homage to the books than anything else.Also a heavy dose of crude humor, it's a comedy of errors first and formost more so than the epic adventures of the books it is inspired by. Set in present time our dear Huckleberry Finn is a ex con and Tom Sawyer is his childhood friend who ended up becoming a police officer, albeit for no noble reasons.Kyle Gallner is always good and he is definitely the best actor in this film and delivers a lowkey but very good performance as Huck, Adam Nee is entertaining as Tom but his character is pretty one dimensional... But so are most of the other characters.After seeing Stephen Lang being absolutely brilliant in 'DON'T BREATHE (2016)' I must say I was a little let down by his (too) mild performance in this one.But overall the performances are good enough.There were a couple times where I thought they should have wrote this or that differently in the script but overall the plot is also good enough.So yeah overall, no masterpiece but... good enough 6.5/10.
MagnoliaTF
I just saw an "on-demand" showing of this movie at our downtown relic independent theater (the old Wurlitzer is still there from way back when!)The father-in-law of one of the leads was a high school friend, and a neighbor, and word spread through the grapevine asking everyone in our class to recruit three or four more friends to go along. We almost filled the enormous old theater! This movie is amazingly well done, and being done on a very tight budget made it all the more interesting. How did they do so much, so creatively and so well? The friend told us it had been considered for Sundance, receiving several nominations. It will be on Netflix soon, so look for it! And if you watch it through a haze of some premium bourbon, it would be even better!
Micah Knowles
I had seen the trailer several months before and patiently waited for its limited theater release. I was not disappointed.The music and visuals make an excellent first impression; the first and last shots of the film are stunning. Once the plot developed, I began to appreciate the subtle humor and eccentric style. The actors are phenomenal and clearly care about their contribution to the film. An unpredictable story simply adds to the joy of it all. I do not believe there is anything I dislike about this film.It is clear this movie's low ratings are given by people who do not enjoy modern adaptations of classic literature, nor understand or appreciate the unique, eccentric style it embodies. This is completely understandable.Regardless, 10/10.
cinemacy
Classic characters from perhaps the greatest literary work of American literature, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer have hit the big screen, in a re-imagining that takes their mischievously- intentioned, hero-of-the-story selves, keeps a driving plot about finding a mythic treasure, and leaves the rest behind – and to good-spirited, well-earned fun in the new film, 'Band of Robbers'.It should be stated early, there's not a whole lot that 'Robbers' truly, truly, lifts from Mark Twain's classic novel or characters other than using the characters' likeliness and winning charms to drop them into this new culture mash-up. It's really just the story of a version of a Huck Finn (Kyle Gallner) and a Tom Sawyer (Adam Nee), where Huck is a recent prison release looking to make clean and Tom is a wily cop whose adventure-seeking ways leads to his character's charming but still law-skirting flirtations, and through this all, they still remain the best of friends, along with a band of other self-affirmed misfit pirate pals.The faces and talents enlisted here are truly where the comedy shines. It has the taste of 21 Jump Street comic-firing and timing of every-line-a-joke (and mostly bulls eye's at that), uses some familiar faces and some not-so, in playing a winning hand. Kyle Gallner as Huck is a Jeremy Renner and Rick Grimes a la The Walking Dead, where Adam Nee is as much as stand- out in a role that he knows so well. The geek-beloved Matthew Gray Gubler as Joe Harper, along with Hannibal Burress as Ben Rogers add a deep bench to the effort, with Burress (and "Greg
Knife" nailing every one of his scenes). Melissa Benoist and Eric Christian Olsen also star as little-used Becky Thatcher, Tom's new partner on the day of the planned heist (mention heist) and Sid Sawyer, beloved detective who plays it maybe a bit too straight.Written and directed by brother filmmaking team Aaron and Adam Nee, 'Robbers' went through many years of development (including an idea of it being a TV show) before finally having its world premiere at the LA Film Festival. One wonders what following that version of Huck, Tom, and company may have been like, and what many adventures they may have spun in and out of in sit-com fashion. But its final format of a ninety-five-minute feature film feels like the best use of its talent, sparing any over-indulgence in what could have flopped as a gimmick and succeeds as a send-up that breathes fresh life into an American classic.