The Old Man & the Gun (2018)
Trivia
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Spoilers (13)
In an interview he gave during the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, Robert Redford talked about this comedic film being a good note to end on, since the actor wanted his "last acting job to be fun."
The other members of the Over-The-Hill Gang were John Waller (played by Tom Waits), who'd escaped maximum-security San Quentin with Tucker in 1979; another man with whom they'd built a boat from smuggled supplies and nearly made it past the guard tower before high waves capsized them; a guard who saw their hand-painted outfits and overturned kayak was won over by a joke Tucker made, and let them go on their way; and Teddy Green (played by Danny Glover), an escape artist and fellow bank robber Tucker met during his 1950s stint in Alcatraz.
There are several "Easter egg" references to Robert Redford's earlier films, including the opening legend, which is nearly identical to the one that opens Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) ("Not that it matters, but most of what follows is true") and the scene between Redford and Casey Affleck, where Affleck runs a finger over the side of his nose, which was the signal in The Sting (1973) between the con men that they were fellow-travelers.
Although he receives fourth billing, Keith Carradine's role was almost completely dropped; he appears for literally three or four seconds with a single line of dialogue. (Director David Lowery has stated the cut footage will be included on the DVD.)
The opening credits are also written in the same font as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).
The script is based on David Grann's 2003 article in The New Yorker titled "The Old Man and the Gun", which was later collected in Grann's book "The Devil and Sherlock Holmes".
David Lowery tried to write the true crime version of this movie and the journalistic version of what really happened, and Robert Redford never felt like he fit into that. In other words, according to Lowery himself, his idea of who Redford was as an actor never really fit into the true story of Forrest Tucker. So after many, many drafts, he realized that what he needed to write was the movie that Forrest Tucker would have wanted to see. He needed to write the version of Forrest Tucker that he saw in his own head as opposed to the one that really showed all the things he did. There was a thin line between two, but it was a very important line and that line allowed him to write a movie that was the version that Redford could excel playing.
It was Robert Redford who was interested in talking to David Lowery about adapting David Grann's article that Redford had been wanting to make since he read it when it first came out in 2003.
According to David Lowery, he wasn't excited necessarily about making a bank robber movie or a cops and robbers movie. Making the Robert Redford movie was really exciting to him.
The film cast includes four Oscar winners: Casey Affleck, Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek and Keith Carradine; and one Oscar nominee: Tom Waits (although Redford and Carradine's win, and Waits' nomination were in non-acting categories).
Sissy Spacek and Robert Redford won an Oscar in the same year. Spacek won as Best Actress in a Leading Role for Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) and Redford won as Best Director for Ordinary People (1980).
Decision to quit acting on Robert Redford's part was taken when he decided to act in this movie.
Filmed in Cincinnati, Ohio; Hamilton, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Waco, Texas; Ft. Worth, Texas. Filmed in Bethel, Ohio on April 4, 2017 at the Midway Theater and Wichard Oil gas station.
At a certain point while he was writing the script, David Lowery decided that he has no business telling: a true story; a story about cops and robbers, and; a story about people who have lived a great deal of life.
Reunites director David Lowery and actor Casey Affleck. Their prior collaborations are Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013) and A Ghost Story (2017).
Real life main character is not related to the late, great character actor Forrest Tucker (1919-1986).
John David Washington & Isiah Whitlock Jr. previously appeared together as Southern police officers in BlacKkKlansman (2018).
The title of the movie is obviously a play on Ernest Hemingway's book, "The Old Man and the Sea".
David Lowery met with Disney about Pete's Dragon (2016) the same day that he met Robert Redford about this movie.
During the film the song 'Lola' by British band The Kinks is played. At the time the film was set Robert Redford was still married to his first wife, whose name is Lola.
This movie was the first time that Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek had worked together. However they both appeared in Michael Ritchie directed movies: Redford in Downhill Racer (1969) and The Candidate (1972) and Spacek in Prime Cut (1972).
Spoilers
The prison break montage features a clip from The Chase (1966) starring a young Robert Redford.
When Forrest Tucker settled into a happy life with third wife Jewell Centers in 1993, she, unlike her movie counterpart played by Sissy Spacek, had no idea of her husband's criminal career until his 80s arrest in 1999, thinking he was a stock broker named Bob Callahan.
According to David Lowery, the final montage of Forrest Tucker is like a summary of Robert Redford's career. It is as if "all those escapes almost feel like it's like you're listing the movies he's made".
It was a suggestion on Tom Waits' part that perhaps his character could have a monologue. When Waits brought the idea to the table, David Lowery asked him if he had any stories in mind that he'd like to tell and he told Lowery the Christmas story, which as far as Lowery is concerned is 100% true.
The shot of Robert Redford on the horse with a line of cop cars speeding in the distance was David Lowery's idea. For at a certain point while writing the chase scene, Lowery felt like he needed to take this pursuit further, leave reality behind, enter the symbolic realm and once again let Redford's status as a legend take precedence in the sequence. Also according to Lowery, it was one of those rare moments on set where you just feel like you're watching a little bit of history happen in front of you.
While Robert Redford announced this movie would be his final film role, he reprised his role as villain Alexander Pierce in 2019's Avengers: Endgame (2019) - except he actually filmed these two movies in the opposite order to their release dates, first as Alexander Pierce and later as Forrest Tucker.
In the hospital scene, John Hunt (Casey Affleck) as he leaves the room of Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford) swipes the side of his nose with his right index finger. The same gesture occurs several times in The Sting (1973) by among others Redford, Paul Newman, and Harold Gould's characters as an nonverbal acknowledgment that "I see you and I'm here and ready for the sting."
According to David Lowery, the clip from Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) was used because he saw similarities between Forrest Tucker and Warren Oates' character.
Shooting the chase scene with the '57 Chevy was David Lowery's way of paying homage to Two-Lane Blacktop (1971).
