Robert Redford has had one of the great movie careers of all time. The legendary actor has accomplished everything you could probably want to, starring in the classics of old cinema and even a Captain America movie! Redford has said that he intends to retire from acting after The Old Man & The Gun. The David Lowery directed film plays like a lovely swan song for the star, partially mythologizing him and giving him a juicy role to play, while always being fun.
As you have guessed, Redford is playing Forest Tucker, the old man with the gun. Tucker is a lifelong criminal, but a relatively harmless one, living for the thrill of the moment by robbing banks, but in a sweet way, complimenting the teller/manager he was robbing. In his most recent stint of crimes in early 1980s Texas, he meets Jewel (Sissy Spacek) who’s intrigued enough by him to strike up a relationship, but willing to accept he’s got secrets. Meanwhile, a Texas police officer John Hunt (Casey Affleck) starts putting together the host of crimes Forest committed, and seeing how far reaching his thefts have become; Hunt then does his namesake and beings the manhunt for Tucker and his “Over the Hill” gang, including Teddy (Danny Glover) and Waller (Tom Waits).
As good as Redford is in The Old Man & The Gun, the success of this film is largely due to writer/director David Lowery. Lowery is great at making a story seem slightly larger than life, like we’re witnessing one of Aesop’s fables or a Shakespeare sonnet. The Old Man & The Gun could easily have just been a by-the-numbers crime thriller about a robber and his eventual capture. However, Lowery pivots the story around Forest, and lets the layers of his deception to the world reveal themselves one piece at a time, creating a larger, deeper canvas than just a nice old man robbing a bank. In scenes with Jewel, Forest talks around his foibles, but clearly charms (cons?) her, with Lowery directing this encounter as another type of heist the gifted Tucker is capable of, while also showing how decent of a man he is (he tries to pay the mortgage on her farm so she can live there peacefully). John Hunt’s search is less about how to capture the man (this happened through pure luck), but about secondhand discovering how legen…wait for it…dary Forest actually is. Hunt discovers just how many banks and states Tucker has been robbin, and just how easily he gets away with it. He also meets others who tell the tale of how even when Forest gets captured, he finds a way to escape whatever prison he is in. This light hearted rendering of the story keeps the stakes pretty low, and allows us to be humored and charmed by Forest Tucker, not scared of a “monster criminal.”
And this is all easy for Lowery, because he’s got Robert Redford to revolve the movie around. Redford had the rights to this story for a while, and it’s easy to see why the role appealed to him. Redford plays Forest as an enigmatic thrill seeker, enjoying the spotlight but for himself but never wanting to hurt anyone while seeking it. The minute the chase gets real, he finds a way to eliminate the darkness to keep his story feeling like a tall tale. Redford has a lot of fun here, especially when conversing with his Over the Hill Gang or actually confronting John Hunt about his search for himself. His bank robberies use all of Redford’s tools: his charm, his ability to be taken seriously, and his empathy for the scared. His scenes with Sissy Spacek are sweet and mildly devious, clearly allowing Redford to spin his own yarn about Forest’s personal backstory. All the other actors here gamely play 2nd fiddle to Redford: the man, the myth, and now, the legend.
It’s kinda funny Danny Glover is part of The Over The Hill Gang; his Lethal Weapon character is famous for saying “I’m too old for this shit.” Forest Tucker could not disagree more with this statement, and I like to think that Robert Redford willed Danny Glover to come in and play this role convincing him he isn’t too old, and then Glover convinced Redford to retire from acting, because he was too old for this shit. And all the while I like to picture Seven Psychopaths‘s Tom Waits, creepily petting a rabbit because it’s just hilarious and adds to the Over The Hill Gang’s legend…