Director John Lee Hancock (The Founder) mounts a valiant effort to stretch a solid genre picture into an American epic with the tale of two ex-Texas Rangers — put out to pasture because of their willingness to shoot first and say “hands up” later — who get pressed back into service because somebody’s got to stop the popular murder couple Bonnie & Clyde. He’s got an awful lot to work with: the fading echoes of the old west, the rise of celebrity culture, character-based manhunting (“Outlaws always come home”) vs. technological tracking (wiretaps, etc.), and then there are all those marvelous vistas of the open road to photograph. But his effort is undermined in several crucial respects, first among them a weirdly Celtic/New Agey score that, again and again, works against the required mood for a given scene. (It was constant enough and distracting enough to make me wonder if there was something I just wasn’t getting, so I’ll throw up my hands and say your mileage may vary.) Second place has to go to Kevin Costner’s growly, barky performance in a lead role that needed to be Gary Cooper-level stoic. (It would have worked beautifully against Woody Harrelson’s hangdog, sad-eyed work as his more feeling partner.) After that, there’s the matter of general overindulgence: in scenes, in takes, in emotions. Still, it should tickle a number of fancies. (2019) — Matthew Lickona
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