A FILM REVIEW OF ''THE HIGHWAYMEN" (2019)

"Blind Side" director John Lee Hancock's authentic, Depression Era, road-trip, manhunt thriller "The Highwaymen," (*** OUT OF ****) co-starring Oscar-winning actor Kevin Costner and Oscar-nominated Woody Harrelson, serves as the flip side of the classic Warner Brothers' gangster epic "Bonnie & Clyde" (1967), with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Told from the perspective of the two seasoned manhunters who tracked down the bloodthirsty young Texas couple, "The Highwaymen" confines their quarry Bonnie & Clyde to the periphery of the mayhem, out-of-the-limelight, depicting them in either far-off shots or close-ups, so audiences cannot sympathize with these trigger-happy desperados who had gunned down policemen without a qualm. "Young Guns" scenarist John Fusco has provided far more history about this pugnacious pair in this Netflix movie than its celebrated theatrical predecessor. Often, when we see Bonnie, we are given only glimpses of her feet encased in ruby red shoes. She walks with a limp that she acquired after Clyde drove off a bridge under construction when he missed a detour. This mishap injured Bonnie so severely that she resorted to laudanum, a concoction of opium and alcohol, to relieve the agony until she died in May 1934 in a hail of gunfire from two former Texas Rangers--Frank Hamer and Manny Gault--along with a posse in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Throughout this chronicle of their pursuit, Hamer and Gault were amazed by the relative lack of height of the two criminals in comparison to the media attention that transformed them into titanic celebrities during what was termed 'the Public Enemy era' between 1931 and 1934. In the final scene, Hancock gives us a lingering glance of the two felons, looking like two clean-scrubbed, fashionably attired cherubs, with an arsenal of firearms at their fingertips.

As depicted in "The Highwaymen," the beginning of the end for the notorious duo started with a prison breakout that Bonnie & Clyde orchestrated to free accomplices from the Texas-based Eastham Prison Farm in 1934. Warden Lee Simmons (John Carroll Lynch of "Shutter Island") of the Texas Department of Corrections got the green light from Governor Miriam "Ma" Ferguson (Kathy Bates of "Primary Colors") to hire Hamer to stop the crime spree of these two twentysomething renegades. Privately, Ferguson had nothing but contempt for the Texas Rangers, recently disbanded under a cloud of corruption, and warned her own duly appointed constabulary that they would face repercussions if the two former Rangers nabbed Bonnie & Clyde. Frank Hamer (Kevin Costner of "Dances with Wolves") comes out of retirement and accepts Simmons' offer despite the misgivings of his socialite wife. Hamer chooses an old friend and former Texas Ranger Benjamin Maney Gault (Woody Harrelson of "Natural Born Killers") to accompany him. Neither Hamer nor Gault is in good enough shape to chase a teenager around the block near Bonnie's mother's house. Hamer hasn't fired his revolver in such a long time that he cannot obliterate bottles with bullets. While immaculately dressed officers of the state of Texas as well as the FBI rely on the latest modern crime-fighting technology to pursue the elusive Bonnie & Clyde, Hamer counts on his frontier savvy about human nature and maps charting the couple's whereabouts to ferret them out. Comparatively, this evokes memories of the turn-of-the-century John Wayne western "Big Jake" (1971) where Wayne tracked down the dastards who kidnapped his grandson, while law enforcement handicapped by modern technology could do little despite their apparent advantages over him. Ultimately, Hamer and Gault put everybody, including FBI with their aerial searches, to shame. Essentially, our heroes qualify as underdogs who manage to triumph despite incredible odds to stop the Barrow gang.

Mind you, "The Highwaymen" certainly isn't the most exciting manhunt melodrama. At times, the going is mighty slow because Hamer and Gault painstakingly gather clues and develop leads based on their bloodhound instincts. Although most of the action involves Hamer and Gault, they have few encounters with Bonnie & Clyde until the finale. The scene that highlights best what our heroes must contend with occurs when they tail Bonnie & Clyde out of a town and then lose them in the middle of nowhere. Clyde careens off the highway into a barren field and swerves in circles around Hamer and Gault. Clyde churns up a blinding dust storm and loses the two Texas Rangers. Eventually, after he learns that the felons are cruising off for 'greener pastures,' Hamer decides to pursue them into Louisiana where the authorities have issued no warrants for their arrest. During the manhunt, Gault agonizes about his ability to shoot a woman. Later, they learn Bonnie Parker has been as just as cold-blooded and homicidal as Clyde. This is a far cry from the vintage Warner Brothers movie. Hamer follows a lead involving one of Clyde's accomplices in Louisiana. He cuts a deal with the father of one of Clyde's cronies that culminates in the inevitable ambush of the twosome. The posse catch Bonnie & Clyde as they approach their accomplice's father who is seeking roadside assistance. Reportedly, in real life, the posse poured so many volleys of gunfire into the couple that the barrage deafened them.

Clocking in at two hours and twelve minutes, "The Highwaymen" aims for the older demographic that loved "Unforgiven." Nevertheless, it ranks far above anything that Costner has made in many moons. Costner and Harrelson lend their considerable gravitas to Hancock's authentic looking film. The $49-million production does a commendable job of recreating the utter despair and destitution suffered by too many people during the Great Depression. Some critics and historians have accused Hamer of overstepping his authority after he shadowed Bonnie & Clyde into Louisiana, and he could have taken them alive. Hancock and Fusco show that Hamer was prepared to do whatever was necessary to kill the couple. Despite its impressive adherence to history, "The Highwaymen" will always lay in the shadow of the Oscar-winning Warner Brothers' classic, but it does provide greater insight into Bonnie & Clyde.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN RIDE!" (1972)

"The Magnificent Seven Ride!" (** out of ****) qualifies as a saddle sore sequel compared to the two previous sequels, Burt Kennedy's "Return of the Seven" (1966) and Paul Wendkos' "Guns of the Magnificent Seven" (1968) and the incomparable John Sturges original "The Magnificent Seven." Lee Van Cleef is the best thing about "The Magnificent Seven Ride." He looks like he belongs in this tame horse opera and his performance is top-notch. No, he doesn't resemble either Yul Brynner or George Kennedy. He lends a commanding presence that this woebegone western desperately needs. The rest of the cast look like they're collecting a paycheck. Moreover,this "Seven" lacks depth of character and generates no more than a modicum of sympathy, unlike their forerunners.

"Frogs" director George McCowan manages to keep the action galloping along for its 100 minutes, and seasoned TV scenarist Arthur Rowe has altered the formula for this outing. For example, unlike the original, our heroes attack the Hispanic villain's camp before they engage him in a fight to the death in the village at the end. Unfortunately, "The Magnificent Seven Ride!" breaks far too many rules. The villain amounts to a one-dimensional cipher with no personality. Indeed, he doesn't utter a word. The best part of this lackluster western occurs in the last twenty minutes as the seven prepare for the onslaught of De Toro's men. "The Magnificent Seven Ride!" looks tired, empty, and worn out owing to its ersatz back lot setting and familiar television locales. Clearly, McCowan could not surmount the obstacles inherent in the low budget. Interestingly, while he doesn't stage the action scenes with distinction, McCowan does frame the gunfights occasionally so that we see more participants in the same shot with the shooter killing his adversary, something that used to be frowned upon back in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Walter Thompson does a competent editing job, but he doesn't have much with which to work so the film has a routine rhythm to it. Talented "Patton" lenser Fred J. Koenekamp had little time to make this sagebrusher look as majestic as the earlier "Seven" entries.

Die-hard "Magnificent Seven" fans have every right to abhor this lame western. I saw it in the theatre when it came out in 1972 and found it nothing short of deplorable. "The Magnificent Seven Ride!" doesn't live up to the Sturges, Kennedy, and Wendkos films. In fact, Geoff Murphy's television pilot surpasses the McCowan film. I remember "Playboy" magazine film critic Bruce Williamson commented that "TM7R" got by "on bits and pieces." In retrospect, more than 30 years later, my aversion to this film has dissipated. Although the McCowan film has its good points, the bad points set aside most of its assets. The stupendous Elmer Bernstein orchestral score seems to have lost its grandeur, too.

"The Magnificent Seven Ride!" opens with Chris (Lee Van Cleef) and another horseman skedaddling out of town. One of Chris' pals from the past,former bounty hunter Jim McKay (Ralph Waite of "The Stone Killer"), is riding to see him in the hope that he can enlist Chris' help against a dastardly Mexican bandit called De Toro. Two of De Toro's men lay in ambush for Jim, but Chris guns down them without mercy and saves his old friend's life. When Jim asks Chris to ride with him, our pipe-smoking protagonist refuses. Not only has he ridden to Mexico three times before, but now he has taken a wife, Arrila (Mariette Hartley of "Barquero"), "who's still practically a bride." McKay reminds Chris that he saved his life, but Chris isn't about to budge. MacKay reminds them about the first time that they went south and earned only $50 dollars per man. Chris still turns him down.

Meanwhile, an out-of-work journalist, Noah Forbes (Michael Callan of "Cat Ballou"),wants to immortalize Chris the same way that Ned Buntline did Buffalo Bill Cody. While all this is transpiring, Arrila pleads with Chris to turn loose an 18-year old robber Shelly (Darrell Larson) who is about to be sent to serve a stretch in Tucson Territorial Prison. Eventually, Arrila wears her husband down and Chris frees Shelly. Shelly repays him by robbing the town bank, wounding him in the shoulder, and abducting Arrila. Chris and Noah track down Shelly's accomplices and Chris shoots them down in cold blood. Chris crosses trails with Jim again. Jim is the law in a Sonora village called Magdalena. Magdalena is a farming village that consists primarily of Mexicans with a few American families. De Toro (Ron Stein)and his army of gunmen terrorize the border. Neither the Rurales nor the U.S. Calvary have had any luck thwarting his notorious activities. Worse, neither refuse to work with the other. When Chris runs into Jim the second time, he learns that Shelly has ridden by and left. Chris learns later that Shelly joined De Toro's gang and showed them a rear approach (a la "The 300 Spartans")and the bandit killed Jim. As it turns out, Jim killed Shelly. "He's done my job," Chris observed, "I'll do his."

Chris rides into Magdalena and discovers a village comprised now of wives who are widows and some children. They don't have enough horses to escort the wives out of the village, and Chris refuses to let them walk across the desert where they would be easy targets for the villains. Since De Toro and his gang have ridden north across the border, Chris promises Mrs. Laurie Gunn (Stephanie Powers of "Hart to Hart")that he will return. She has her doubts. Noah and Chris ride to Tucson Territorial Prison where Chris presented pardons signed by the governor and the warden reluctantly paroles into his custody Walt Drummond (William Lucking), Scott Elliot (Ed Lauter of "The Longest Yard"), Matt Skinner (Luke Askew of "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid"), Pepe Carral (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.), and ex-Army officer Andy Hayes(James B. Sikking of "Star Trek 3"). Chris warns them that he has to consign the pardons before they can be freed and that he dies under any circumstances that the law will track them down. Chris has Elliot, who is a demolitions expert, ride a
wagon filled with explosives. They set out for De Toro's hacienda and attack it. The closest thing to cool in this western is when Pepe sits perched on the roof with a cigar glowing in his mouth, ignites a stick of dynamite, and uses his bullwhip to deliver it under the awning where two Mexicans are operating a Gatling gun during their attack. The problem, however, is that you can see the dummy explode when the dynamite detonates. Our heroes takes De Toro's woman hostage and Chris lets one of De Toro's men go to warn his boss. Before he releases the Mexican, he identifies himself and the rest of his men. Now, the convicts cannot escape and hide in Mexico if Chris dies because De Toro will track them down, and they cannot escape across the border because the law will come after them. In other words, these five convicts aren't the saintly bunch that filled the ranks of the seven in the other movies. Okay, this serves as a nod to realism, but it doesn't endear them to us.

"The Magnificent Seven Ride!" looks completely different from the three earlier oaters. "The Magnificent Seven" was made in Mexico, and "Return of the Seven" and "Guns of the Magnificent Seven" were shot in scenic Spain. In fact, "TM7R" was shot at Universal Studios back lot where "Laredo," "Alias Smith & Jones," and "The Virginian" were made. The exterior desert scenes were lensed at Vasquez Rocks where Captain Kirk battled an alien in the "Star Trek" episode "Arena" and where virtually every cheapjack genre B-movie has been shot.

"The Magnificent Seven Ride! isn't very magnificent.