BallWubba Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

bkoganbing In the tradition of such as the James, Daltons, and Doolins of the previous century, the Newton Brothers who hailed from Uvalde, Texas were more in that tradition as they robbed banks and such throughout the middle part of the USA in the post World War I years. The Newtons are played by Matthew McConaughey, Skeet Ulrich, Ethan Hawke, and Vincent D'Onofrio. Watching them on the screen I kept thinking of that theme from the Dukes Of Hazard, "just some good old boys, meaning no harm".Especially McConaughey who is the leader and brains of the outfit. He just oozes country boy charm. It serves him in very good stead when the Newtons are standing before the bar of justice. It also serves him well in courting Julianna Margulies who in that other country tradition stands by her man though she has to do some thinking on it.Like the other family outlaw gangs of the west, the Newtons had their associates, though for them none like Bob Ford. Like the James Brothers they tried to switch to trains. It was that switch to trains that led to their downfall and a close call for one of the brothers. For the Newtons that train robbery was the equivalent of what happened to the James gang after the Northfield, Minnesota bank job. One of them nearly doesn't make it.No one was ever killed during a Newton caper a fact that stood them in good stead at trial. The sentencing hearing with McConaughey is also outstanding.I liked Vincent D'Onofio who is the most rebellious of the brothers. He'd be going the outlaw way even without family support.The Newton Boys does very well in depicting post World War I in rural America. American agriculture after the boom of World War prices for food abroad and for the troops never shared in the Roaring Twenties boom for the city folk. This film depicts that fact very well.The four players who depict the Newtons and the rest of the cast are set perfectly in their roles. One thing about the Newtons I have to say is that the film is done with style in the way they did their crimes.

Chris Knipp I watched this on DVD because it was recommended by Jonathan Rosenbaum on his ten-best list for the year, and the cast interested me, especially D'Onofrio and Skeet Ulrich. This confirms my admiration of the under-seen Ulrich, who's the doubting, conscience-stricken brother. His uneasiness stands out against the tedious good-old-boy jollity of the others. That shtick is a little too easy to do, and I don't think it gets the Twenties quite right, really. Rosenbaum is a great film critic but his end of the year recommendations are not always to be trusted, which makes you wonder about how written-in-stone his 1000 films list is. He also said that since the expansive images were a big part of the pleasure of the movie he didn't know how good it would be on DVD.Gosh, was it really so easy to rob a bank in those days? The way some of the robberies go makes it look like it was all a cinch, but surely they'd be scared sometimes because you still stood to go to jail for it, maybe for a good long time. Actually it was easy to robe banks with square-doored safes, and it isn't so hard to hold up a little bank today.This is surprising from Linklater not only because of the step into genre, but because of his willingness to glorify and simplify his good-boy/bad-boy crew. Where are the tormented and confused guys of his stoner movies? Matthew McConaughey certainly does rise to the challenge with a spirited and enthusiastic performance, but all his moments are still clichés. Hawke similarly grins and giggles in a quite shallow way. His character is not well defined and D'Onofiro, arguably the best actor of the bunch, is wasted. Statistically the Newton bank robbers were remarkable, but Ebert may be right that they are less famous than Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde because they were too "respectable," i.e., dull. The screenplay lacks an angle, other than the glib one of boys on a lark, which fails to convince, and even when things go wrong, lacks a tragic dimension.The action is desultory, lacking a strong focus on character or action or any guiding principle. Hence comparison with 'Bonnie and Clyde,' or more dashing adventures in the same vein like 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' or 'The Sting,' simply isn't really possible. This isn't in the same league. It utterly pales in comparison to European robbery films like 'Rififi' or the recent 'Mesrine' gangster epic starring Vincent Cassel. Only the few moments with Dwight Yoakam as Brentwood Glasscock, the brothers' explosives expert, provide a welcome 'Rififi'-like hint of bank-robbing as a challenging activity requiring certain skills and techniques.This is not to say you can't have fun watching. These young actors are in their physical prime, and that includes the ladies, notably the handsome-looking Julianna Margulies as McConaughey's girlfriend. The period flavor is sometimes ripe and tasty. The production is very good-looking, and there is some nice cinematography: a silhouetted image of the mail train the Newton brothers are about to rob is particularly cool. The whole cadre things are set in, including the jaunty music, is conventional, but it's undeniably fun. The movie's a little long, but the climactic later scenes are involving. But still, this is very far from Linklater at his best, and Rosenbaum ought to admit he erred in ranking it so high.

jotix100 "The Newton Boys", Richard Linkletter's account on this family of criminals, was a surprise when it was shown on cable, recently. The strength of the story, which was co-written by the director, is based on a real family of bandits who never became as famous as other notorious criminals of the era. Perhaps, because they were basically farm boys, they never got involved in killing their victims, yet they manage to rob a string of banks that had a simple type of safe. Once bigger, and more complicated devices were adopted, it ended the way they did business.Willis, the brain of the organization, learns from someone he meets on the road when he leaves his rural home, how to blow a bank safe with the help of explosives. Willis, in turn, gets his three brothers involved in helping him for the different jobs throughout the middle of the country, and even in Canada. Willis, who falls in love with the attractive employee of a hotel news and tobacco stand, is a successful robber whose luck runs out when he tries his hand at robbing a train that is carrying about three million dollars, a fatal miscalculation on his part.The film is fun to watch because of the easy chemistry among all the brothers. Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D'Onofrio appear to be having a great time with their characters and with each other. Joanna Margulies is a lovely Louise, the woman who falls in love with Willis. Dwight Yoakam is seen as the man who teaches Willis his trade as a bank robber.At the end of the film we watch one of the brothers appearing as a guest of "The Tonight Show" as he looked then. All brothers, it appears went straight after their brush with the law and lived long lives. Richard Linkletter did a film that is fun to watch as it is never heavy, and keeps moving at a quick pace.

elainew32 In a way, it seems like a waste to gather Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D'Onofrio for this movie, because they should've been able to do something great, although, if it weren't for them, it would have been boring. It is a straightforward assembly of the facts of the incredible run of 80 bank robberies by the Newton brothers. Then they go for the big one, a train robbery of Federal Reserve funds. It is entertaining, but I was most entertained during the running of the credits. Over to the left, they show clips of Joe Newton at about age 79, on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, interspersed with film clips of an interview with Willis Newton in his 80's, both giving their views of what it was like and how they felt about what they had done. After seeing Hollywood's version of their lives, it was interesting to see what they were like in old age.