Terry Hiller

Very good movie on so many levels. The photography is beautiful, great script, Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson are superb as the two Texas Rangers who are sent out to put an end to the murdering and robbery spree of Bonnie and Clyde. In a way, this movie is about the power of the media, which portrayed Bonnie and Clyde as glamorous Robin Hoods, taking from the banks and I'm not sure that they gave to the poor, but the press made them romantic figures. Thousands of people attended their funerals, women dressed like Bonnie, and were hysterical when she and Clyde were killed. But you don't see them, until the very end, as the Rangers track them and finally ambush them on a lonely road in Louisiana. Frank Hamer, Kevin Costner's character, put it succinctly, after Bonnie cold bloodily murdered a sherrif's deputy -- one of many -- and the pair beat to death a young man who they saw as a snitch, "They aren't human any more. They've got to be stopped." And relentlessly Hamer and Manny Gault, Harrelson's character, stayed on their trail until they could bring them down. There was never a question of bringing them in alive. This move contrasts starkly with Warren Beatty's movie in the 60s about B&C. That movie glamorized them, as if Beatty couldn't care less about their cold bloodedness. He focused on making them beautiful, in love, and sympathetic. After seeing The Highwayman, I now have a much better perspective on Bonnie and Clyde, the press, and how what's happening today in the media, that glamorizes people who ought to probably be in jail, or worse, creating a false impression in the minds of the masses, has all happened before. Nonetheless, you can't fool all the people all the time. Great movie.