Icons & Heat

Hollywood icon Robert Redford has said The Old Man & the Gun (2018) will be his final film. If so, it’s a solid farewell. I caught up to it last night courtesy of Netflix. It is the story of the waning years of Forrest Tucker, a polite sociopath who was first caught stealing at 15 and continued until his final incarceration put an end to his nefarious run. He was jailed many times and often escaped. He became a master bank robber, the brains behind The Over the Hill gang. It is estimated that he stole millions. He died in prison at 83. Redford plays him with the charm he has displayed throughout his fantastic career. He receives able support from Danny Glover and Tom Waits as his accomplices, Sissy Spacek as a widow with whom he is smitten, and Casey Affleck as a cop on his trail. Director David Lowery chose a low key approach. He adapted the screenplay from an article in the New Yorker by David Gann. There is very little action, a lot of subtle humor. The focus is on character. From what I was able to ascertain, the incidents portrayed are very faithful to reality. The one big difference I found was that Tucker was married three times, not one. I wonder if that was a concession to brevity or a softening of a career criminal audiences might not like. The film runs only 93 minutes, a plus, and uses flashbacks, including one that briefly, cleverly incorporates a scene from The Chase (1966), in which Redford’s character was on the run. 28,000+ users at IMDb have rated The Old Man & the Gun, forging to a consensus of 6.8 on a scale of ten. It was released only domestically, bringing in $11+ million at the box office. Factor in DVD sales and rentals, and streaming, and I’d bet the movie has turned a tidy profit, despite the star’s salary. There’s no sex or violence, and I don’t recall any profanity. It’s rated PG-13. Its appeal is to fans of Redford and of character studies. Lowery is in the midst of an impressive career, logging 24 credits as director, 35 as editor, 14 as cinematographer and even seven as actor. Most of his work has been in shorts. Here’s the legend in character:

50 years ago today — a stunning achievement, testament to man’s potential:

Last Monday I told Sasha’s grandma the floating book shop would return on Saturday, not knowing the heat wave was on its way. I felt compelled to be there today, although I was sure she wouldn’t be crazy enough to show. I was under the tree, and an occasional breeze blew by, but it was still brutal. I hit the water cooler in Chase three times. Fortunately, a woman bought two paperback thrillers in Russian and Bill purchased Joe Gould’s Teeth by Jill Lepore, her restless search for the long-lost, longest book ever written, a century-old manuscript called The Oral History of Our Time. I didn’t feel like a complete idiot, especially when Bay 37th alum Lorraine showed with a donation of about 15 books. As we were gabbing, Sasha’s grandma appeared. She’s moving Tuesday. She dropped off a large plastic bag full of books in Russian as well as English. I sorted all that stuff out, and rested a bit before leaving. This morning I’d read the horrible news of former NY Giants offensive lineman Mitch Petrus’ death from heat stroke. He was only 32. Even before I’d heard that I’d determined to take it easy, to display only a third of the wares, the most marketable. As I was doing a deep breathing exercise a lovely middle age woman who always greets me with a smile as she passes asked if I wanted anything, which she would bring on her return from the store. I told her about the bank’s water cooler. We got to chatting and she mentioned her house in the Ukraine, where her grandfather, a world famous professor, had a 5000-book library. According to Wiki, Mark Krein won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1982 “for his fundamental contributions to functional analysis and its applications.” At the time a payout of $100,000 was included. It is now in the millions. Thanks for the great story, madam, and also to everyone else mentioned above.

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