The Newton Boys . Newcity Chicago . 04-06-98

The Newton Boys

DIRECTED BY: Richard Linklater

REVIEWED: 04-06-98

Bank robbing is funny, as long as the bank's insured and nobody gets shot. That's the basic premise of "The Newton Boys," an entertaining film in which robbery is a family business. Based on the true story of four brothers who robbed eighty banks all over North America between 1919 and 1924 without shooting anyone, "The Newton Boys," like the best bank job, is an ensemble effort. Willis Newton (Matthew McConaughey) is the free-spending ringleader convinced that insurance companies are the real crooks. Teamed up with a dyspeptic nitro expert (Dwight Yoakam), Willis enlists his brothers Jess (Ethan Hawke), Dock (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Joe (Skeet Ulrich) to literally ride shotgun, and lots of hootin', lootin' and shootin' ensue as bank facades explode. The film drags when director Richard Linklater turns his attention to the seemingly tacked-on love affair between Willis and Louise ("E.R."'s Julianna Margulies, alternating throughout between smiling winces and wincing smiles) or the more or less incompetent investigators. Hawke steals the show as a wisecracking, boozin' free spirit, and Yoakam wrests all the humor and insight possible out of the fine art of blowing the door off a box safe. It's only when the Boys try to rob a train outside Chicago that someone finally takes a slug, or five, to be exact. Never fear, though; the final credits roll along with reassuring footage of the real-life Joe Newton, in his seventies, laughing off the whole story on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.

--Sam Jemielty

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Other Films by Richard Linklater
Before Sunrise
SubUrbia

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Wild Wild West
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Kansas City

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