Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Newton Boys (1998)
Director: Richard Linklater
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
After the 'day in the life' indie quartet (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, SubUrbia) this was supposed to be Linklater's breakout mainstream movie, a Texan gangster flick with a hot young cast. In the event, it bombed at the US box office and limps straight to video in Britain. Set in the '20s, it's the story of four brothers who graduate from cowboy hijinks to federal bank heists. There are echoes of Once Upon a Time in America, Bonnie and Clyde and The Long Riders, but overall this is a pale shadow of those genre classics. Except for McConaughey, the brothers are inadequately characterised, and despite such surefire ingredients as chases, shoot-outs and explosions, Linklater gets no narrative momentum going. Quite what attracted one of the more ambitious US independent film-makers to this tired material is hard to imagine - save for a fascinating end credit sequence culled from old TV chat shows where the real life Newton boys, now pensioners, recollect their crimes. It seems a couple of them pulled another job in their seventies. Now that would have been a movie worth seeing.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Richard Linklater
Producer: Ann Walker-McBay
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke, Skeet Ulrich, Vincent D'Onofrio, Dwight Yoakam, Julianna Margulies, Chloe Webb full cast
Duration: 122 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now