The Old Man & the Gun

Forrest Tucker spent most of his life incarcerated in jails and prisons throughout the country. He also broke out of 18 of them, even the most impenetrable of all – San Quentin – which he escaped in an inflatable raft made with two accomplices and floated away under the eyes of the guards. But this most elusive of felons found fame late in his life when he was the ringleader of a group of seniors that robbed banks in the southwest. The media pegged them The Over-the-Hill Gang and reported how Tucker, as the stick-up man, calmed the anxious bank tellers during each robbery, consoling them as he took the money. (He was profiled in the New Yorker in 2003 in article by David Grann from which this film was adapted.)

There may not be a more charming actor to play this role than Robert Redford, who, at a craggy 83, shows he never lost that movie star charisma he's displayed for some 50 years. Playing Tucker in David Lowery's drama that follows his last days of freedom and abandon, he's more like a retired country doctor than one of the most wanted men in Texas in 1980s (not long after the San Quentin escape). His charm goes a long way and makes this film – which Redford says is his last – something of a swan song; so it might seem heretical to say what's wrong with "The Old Man & the Gun" is this actor in this role. There's probably a terrific movie, either a documentary or a feature film to be made about Tucker's life, but this sweet, low-key movie isn't it.

Too often Lowery is far too aware of his star's legacy, photographing him in making you think this is the Sundance Kid's last stand, and not Tucker's story. At one point towards the film's end, Tucker rides a horse, something he says he never did before, and you don't think that this is Tucker's small triumph, a small moment to celebrate as the law closes in on him. Rather your mind flashes to "The Electric Horseman," Redford's 1979 hit, making the moment just another nostalgic movie star moment that robs it of emotional impact. Perhaps if the role were written in a more challenging way, Redford would have had a chance to act outside of his box; but instead he's a likable enigma with only flashes of Tucker's dark side.

Ironically, or perhaps fatally, it is one of those darker traits – his hubris – that brings his downfall; and the film would have been better if it explored his many facets in a more direct manner; instead Lowery shows Tucker as the nicest guy ever to rob a bank. He also woos a 60-ish widow, played by Sissy Spacek. It is a joy to see Spacek on the screen again, whose radiance and beauty transcends age here – no small feat when Lowery photographs her in a continuous close-up, especially in the early scenes. Her scenes with Redford play like something out of a Netflix series aimed at the AARP set and don't give her all that much to work with. But Spacek brings magic to the role and enlivens the film's dull center.

Towards the end, Tucker's past is revealed in a montage of his many escapes and you wish that the film had a broader scope and dealt with the forces that compelled this man to his criminal behavior. Instead "The Old Man & The Gun" is aimed to cap a great movie star's career with the kind of performance aimed at an Oscar nomination. Redford deserves better than this calculated exercise to make his exit from movies. But perhaps like Cher, he can continue his farewell tour.