Texan filmmaker John Lee Hancock is no stranger to tackling often uncelebrated and sometimes controversial historical figures, but the subjects of his latest reality based project, The Highwaymen (premiering on Netflix on Friday, March 29 and currently seeing a limited run at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto), have been stuck in the omnipresent shadows of the criminals they helped capture in 1934.
John Lee Hancock
This week on DVD and Blu-ray: a review of Sandra Bullock‘s Oscar-winning performance in The Blind Side; Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal star in the drama, Brothers; George Clooney plays a psychically gifted solider in the offbeat farce, Men Who Stare At Goats; plus a look at the much-praised animated film, Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Theatres are packed with new films this week, including the much drooled about vampire teen drama, The Twilight Saga: New Moon; Sandra Bullock‘s family film, The Blind Side; the festival favorite, and already critically acclaimed, Precious; plus the Werner Herzog film, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and the animated comedy, Planet 51.
From writer/director John Lee Hancock, who previously brought us The Alamo, comes a drama about family, and football.
When The Alamo is good, it is very good. The battle scenes are terrifically and terrifyingly stages. The characters are well drawn and memorable, and the storytelling is smart and interesting (for a change we have a film that doesn’t venture to insult the intelligence of the average twelve year). When it isn’t quite so good, it is still okay, it just feels a bit slow and uneven.