Once Again-Go Where The Money Is-Robert Redford’s “The Old Man And The Gun” (2018)- Film Review  

By Lance Lawrence

The Old Man and the Gun, Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tom Waits, 2018

Around our neighborhood, our growing up neighborhood in Riverdale west of Boston, in the late 1950s we had our fair share of heroes. Mostly guys who had made the coppers cry for one reason or another or who had pulled some fast one on some high roller. Best of all were the guys who pulled armed robberies, stick-ups. Part of that lure was that the infamous Trigger Burke had set the tone having taken part in the famous Brink’s armored truck robbery of the early 1950s. Part of it was from my our household, and that of a few others when my late oldest brother, Prescott, started his long criminal career robbing the local Esso gas station at gunpoint at the age of seventeen (he got about thirty dollars, got caught and was given “the choice” by the judge-go in the military or go to jail for a long while-he took the military but I remember him saying after the service, he got a bad conduct discharge for some reason I can’t remember, but you can figure it out that he had made the wrong decision.) Something like he could have learned more important career skills in the slammer.

All of this to lead up to two things. First one of the key anthems of the neighborhood toughs when figuring out how to get money was to think about what the famous bank robber Willie Sutton said when, presumably captured after a heist, why he did it. And came back with the classic (and by his lights rational reason)- “that’s where the money is.” Fair enough. But as a recently watched film produced and starring ancient Robert Redford The Old Man and The Gun suggests that is only part of the motivation for a guy like the famous “gentleman” bank robber Forrest Tucker when he held sway back in the days. Maybe it was the excitement, the planning, the cunning or just liking the “life” but the actual money was just something shiny to pursue. All of these ideas got connected through my brother Prescott who actually did time with Forrest back in the early 1960s and so rather than the abstract Sutton that we were not that familiar with the big-time bank robber we knew about was Tucker. Probably if the film had not been made I would have thought nothing about it but since it was made the plot brought back memories of Prescott and his always having what we called his “wanting habits,” his almost constant scheming up some job, some robbery, or some con usually of women to get front money for a job. (Prescott was particularly attractive to women, and not just whores and bar girls there were always college girls around him, even one lawyer, looking for kicks before going off to the suburbs and that kind of good life not on the wild side.)

     

The way the story line played out Redford was trying to pitch to the idea that to some guys the “life” is in their DNA, to live to figure out the next scheme. Maybe if Bertolt Brecht was right in his play The Three Penny Opera the line as to personality types between criminal and businessman is not so far apart. The telling detail of this thought came graphically through at the end of the film when after a big bank robbery spree (which you probably can’t do anymore with the way banks are set up now and where, probably easier to rob ATMs I don’t know) he is finally caught, again, does some time and then is released to his lady friend, played by previously clueless Sissy Spacek who wants him to stay put-with her on her ranch. But it does not take much intuition to know that every look, every move Tucker makes is calling him back to the “life” as old and he was. Just one more spree. And that would be the last spree since he died in prison.

Let’s give few highlights of the film, points about his professional skills (including many escapes from prison and many dodging the coppers) though because Forrest was very clever and smart about the way he worked his grift. As mentioned above his act involved his acting the “gentleman” robber, sometimes on his own and others with a couple of ex-cons dubbed by the media the Over the Hill Gang played by Danny Glover and Tom Waits). Here’s the beauty of his scheme-mild-mannered old guy, an average harmless depositor   Forrest walks up to a teller or a manager and indicated he had a gun aimed right at them. That will usually loosen up those parties to give him what he wants-the dough and then he just as casually walks out the door and all hell breaks loose once the coppers are notified. But see he has a police scanner, extra well-placed automobiles and a route away from danger-usually. Of course the many escapes from prison us that he wasn’t always successful and so perhaps one had better think about a more rational occupation for his energies. Still although it was a close thing, very close in my case as a kid it seemed pretty exciting to live on the edge like that.