Take three of the brightest up and coming actors (Skeet Ulrich, Vincent D'onofrio, and country music guy Dwight Yoakam) add to them two of today's most established young actors (Ethan Hawke and Matthew McCaugnehy), then let them act for one damn shiny director (Richard Linklater) and give them all a classic 20's cops and robbers film to star in, what have you got?
Well, the Newton Boy's of course.
For all that hype, and all that talent, what we recieved was nothing more than a typical heist movie. An enjoyable one, mind you, but typical. It had the bank robbers, the cops chasing them, the love story, the conflict within the group, the tragedy, the bust, and the trial. The only difference this time around was the fact that it's all true... of course I believe some of it to be embellished, but the real little Joe Newton and Willie Newton, in their ripe old age, are featured at the end of the movie with documentary video and little Joe's appearance on Johnny Carson in 1980 establish that what was shown in the movie really did happen.
It all ran something like this: Willie Newton never did get much out of life, or rather, life never gave much to Willie. So Willie decided it was time for him to take, and he got his brothers and an explosives expert in on the racket of nighttime bank robbery. They were successful at it too. Willie's entire goal was to get enough money to build himself an oil well, then let the profits come from there. They managed in under four years to rob over 80 banks. The oil well, when finally finished, was already dry though. Willie was broke, so he got desparate. Old contacts of his gave him the bright idea to rob a mail train, making a delivery of over three million in cash out of Chicago. Of course robbing the mail train is a federal offense and the feds don't give up too easy. During the train robbing Dock Newton was accidentally shot six times, leaving a blood trail for the feds to follow. The Newton boys went to jail, made a deal, got out, lived their lives, the end.
I'll admit, the movie was a lot of fun. The 5 guys in the gang reacted and played off each other very well, the image of loving brothers and undying loyalty to each other acted quite well. Surprisingly, none of the main actors overshadowed the others, although McCaugnehy's screen time was drastically more then others... leading us to the weak spot. A lot of the film dealt with Willie and his love interest Louise, played by ER's Julianna Marguiles, only the two actors didn't work well together and the chemistry definitely wasn't there. I can't say that it would have been different had a different actress been cast, but Marguiles was not the right choice. In all, it's still worth the watch.