THE NEWTON BOYS
Release Date: March 27, 1998 Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, Vincent D'Onofrio, Julianna Margulies, Dwight Yoakam, Chloe Webb Directed by: Richard Linklater Distributed by: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation MPAA Rating: PG-13 (violence including bloody aftermath of a shooting, language) URL: http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1998/newtonboys.htm
The first three months of 1998 have been a textbook exercise in the effect of star power on major American motion pictures: DESPERATE MEASURES (Andy Garcia, Michael Keaton), SPHERE (Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Samuel Jackson), and PRIMARY COLORS (John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton) are all good examples of otherwise weak movies turned into average or better fare. There is no denying the fact that audiences will see a movie simply for the principals in it. While THE NEWTON BOYS follows this trend to a certain level, its four headliners - some of today's best up-and-coming actors - do not account for the entirety of its liveliness.
Rather, the script is peppered with fun-loving, aw-shucks humor that grows on the audience. The story is set in a day that no movie-goer today is old enough to have lived in, and hence derives a sort of romanticism that works towards its advantage. The story is also highly unused. It's been a good while since a down-home, all-American bank robbers story has been told. The most recent film of similar value is the Laurence Fishburne starrer HOODLUM, but the racial, social, and political overtones of that 1930s film seem drab in comparison. There is little that this 1920s recreation lacks, and every bit of it plays to the public's image of the Old West.
The characters, too, are bright and colorful, although not all of them are used to the film's fullest advantage. Matthew McConaughey and Ethan Hawke are the top names here, starring as Willis and Jess Newton. They, along with their brothers Doc and Joe (Vincent D'Onofrio and Skeet Ulrich), are America's most successful bank robbers. Their heists are meticulously planned and skillfully executed, resulting in their take of several hundred thousand dollars. However, when technological advances in the construction of safes and lockboxes make their conventional methods impossible, they turn towards a more daring - and more lucrative - mail train robbery. If completed, the resulting payoff of several million dollars will set them up for life.
Even by today's standards, the Newton boys' ambitions are quite high. This, of course, drags the audience in, for who doesn't like to see a perfectly planned robbery go off without a hitch? Unfortunately, the scenes after the train robbery take too long to play out. The movie has reached such a full head of steam that when the movie doesn't wind down quickly the audience becomes bored and loses interest. Other than that, THE NEWTON BOYS is a movie that's full of color and ambition, most of which pays off. This is a worthwhile film, especially compared to other movies now playing.
FINAL AWARD FOR "THE NEWTON BOYS": 3.0 stars - a good movie.
-- Craig Roush kinnopio@execpc.com -- Kinnopio's Movie Reviews http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio
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