The Newton Boys Movie Review

I didn't see this movie when it first hit the theaters but, being a fan of Matthew McConaughey ("Sahara", "A Time to Kill"), Dwight Yoakam ("Slingblade", "South of Heaven, West of Hell")) and Skeet Ulrich ("Scream", "The Magic of Ordinary Days"), I rented it when it became available. GREAT, fun movie! And based on the true story of four brothers in the late 1910s and early 1920s from Uvalde, Texas (where McConaughey himself was born) who were not only the most successful bank robbers in US history but ALL lived to ripe old age, unlike those criminals that followed them just a few years later, like Bonnie & Clyde, Dillinger, etc. 

 McConaughey, Ulrich, Ethan Hawke ("Taking Lives", "Training Days") and Vincent D'Onofrio ("The Cell", "Law & Order: Criminal Intent") play the Newton Boys, Willis, Joe, Jess and Dock respectively.  Country singer Dwight Yoakam is wonderful as their "cowardly" sidekick, Brentwood Glasscock, who handles the nitroglycerin the gang uses on their jobs and Julianna Margulies ("ER", "Ghost Ship") has THE most beautiful 1920s costumes in her role as McConaughey's love interest, Louise Brown.

Director Linklater ("Dazed and Confused", "The School of Rock") filmed in many of the actual small Texas towns the Newton Boys robbed which is a bonus as many of the buildings, the ones they didn’t blow up anyway, are still standing.  The film also has the best honky-tonk soundtrack, courtesy of an Austin band called Bad Livers (get ahold of a copy if you can - it is SO worth it!) and during the closing credits, we get to see the real Joe and Willis Newton in interviews.

Joe's interview is particularly funny as he is on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson". And the robbery the gang pulls in Toronto has GOT to be the funniest screw-up in outlaw movie history! There is a book available entitled "The Newton Boys" by co-writer Claude Stanush, which this film is based on, and it's basically the oral history of the gang's exploits as remembered by Willis and Joe. Makes for fascinating reading and one other bit of trivia - when Dock Newton (D'Onofrio's character) was in his 70s, in 1968 I believe, he tried to rob the First National Bank of Rowena, Texas which just happened to be the birthplace of one infamous Miss Bonnie Parker.

Just another great bit of American history not taught in schools. Heck, even Frank Hamer, ALSO of Bonnie & Clyde fame, makes a "cameo" in this movie to arrest Jess Newton. Just watch this movie and be amazed at one fascinating family!

THE NEWTON BOYS (1998)
Directed by Richard Linklater, Written by Richard Linklater, Claude Stanush and Clark Lee Walker

Review by Elaine