Chris Knipp I watched this on DVD because it was recommended by Jonathan Rosenbaum on his ten-best list for the year, and the cast interested me, especially D'Onofrio and Skeet Ulrich. This confirms my admiration of the under-seen Ulrich, who's the doubting, conscience-stricken brother. His uneasiness stands out against the tedious good-old-boy jollity of the others. That shtick is a little too easy to do, and I don't think it gets the Twenties quite right, really. Rosenbaum is a great film critic but his end of the year recommendations are not always to be trusted, which makes you wonder about how written-in-stone his 1000 films list is. He also said that since the expansive images were a big part of the pleasure of the movie he didn't know how good it would be on DVD.Gosh, was it really so easy to rob a bank in those days? The way some of the robberies go makes it look like it was all a cinch, but surely they'd be scared sometimes because you still stood to go to jail for it, maybe for a good long time. Actually it was easy to robe banks with square-doored safes, and it isn't so hard to hold up a little bank today.This is surprising from Linklater not only because of the step into genre, but because of his willingness to glorify and simplify his good-boy/bad-boy crew. Where are the tormented and confused guys of his stoner movies? Matthew McConaughey certainly does rise to the challenge with a spirited and enthusiastic performance, but all his moments are still clichés. Hawke similarly grins and giggles in a quite shallow way. His character is not well defined and D'Onofiro, arguably the best actor of the bunch, is wasted. Statistically the Newton bank robbers were remarkable, but Ebert may be right that they are less famous than Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde because they were too "respectable," i.e., dull. The screenplay lacks an angle, other than the glib one of boys on a lark, which fails to convince, and even when things go wrong, lacks a tragic dimension.The action is desultory, lacking a strong focus on character or action or any guiding principle. Hence comparison with 'Bonnie and Clyde,' or more dashing adventures in the same vein like 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' or 'The Sting,' simply isn't really possible. This isn't in the same league. It utterly pales in comparison to European robbery films like 'Rififi' or the recent 'Mesrine' gangster epic starring Vincent Cassel. Only the few moments with Dwight Yoakam as Brentwood Glasscock, the brothers' explosives expert, provide a welcome 'Rififi'-like hint of bank-robbing as a challenging activity requiring certain skills and techniques.This is not to say you can't have fun watching. These young actors are in their physical prime, and that includes the ladies, notably the handsome-looking Julianna Margulies as McConaughey's girlfriend. The period flavor is sometimes ripe and tasty. The production is very good-looking, and there is some nice cinematography: a silhouetted image of the mail train the Newton brothers are about to rob is particularly cool. The whole cadre things are set in, including the jaunty music, is conventional, but it's undeniably fun. The movie's a little long, but the climactic later scenes are involving. But still, this is very far from Linklater at his best, and Rosenbaum ought to admit he erred in ranking it so high.

bobsphotography2000 what always gets people is that Hollywood line, "based on a true story" ....so, i tuned in and tuned out rather quickly. the plot was fairly shallow & predictable and the characters were just too jolly for actual reality and especially reality of wanted criminals.but i was curious to see what they looked like since criminals tend to all look so similar in that freakish kinda way. but even the search engines couldn't locate their photos. so i question just how "successful" the robbers were as it seem nobody in their era really cared much about them other than the usual anger at being victimized. look up bonnie & Clyde & other criminals of their era & you will find the photos. but not these guys.the movie & the subject..... guys thinking they're intelligent for doing nothing more than using guns & explosives :) just plain stupid behavior / so what?. don't waste your time on this one.

Michael O'Keefe History is history and Hollywood is well...Hollywood. This is a fact-based drama that chronicles the exploits of the bank robbing Newton brothers(Matthew McConaughey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ethan Hawke and Skeet Ulrich)who robbed over eight banks from Texas to Toronto in the 20's and 30's. Along with them a friend(Dwight Yoakam)who knew his way with nitro.This makes for exciting explosions on screen with clouds of money to go with gunshot blasts and whining getaway cars. The prolonged career in crime is capped off with a three million dollar mail train heist outside Chicago. This finally landed the boys in a court room and behind bars. By all means don't walk out on the closing credits for you get to find out what happened to each of the principle players. Also in the cast are: Julianna Margulies, Charles Gunning, Chloe Webb and Casey McAuliffe. There is the claim that the Newton boys never killed a soul during their robbing the bigger thieves...the banks.

jmorrison-2 This movie was much better than I expected. Interesting true story told of a band of unusual bank robbers. Almost gentlemen bandits, if you will. McConnaughey, Ulrich, Hawke, and D'Onofrio do a great job with the brother's characters. The end credits are definitely worth watching this for.