Monday, April 6, 1998
Movie stays true to thieves’ experiences
FILM: Exploits of bank robbers unite cast, crew of ‘The Newton
Boys’
By Stephanie Sheh
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
They robbed over 80 banks and were America’s most successful
bank robbers. So why hasn’t anyone heard of them?
"I’d say probably because they didn’t kill anybody," explains
bearded and scruffy Skeet Ulrich from the Four Seasons Hotel. He
plays youngest brother Joe Newton in the movie version about the
criminal bunch "The Newton Boys."
"I think they sort of were a little more low key about it."
Stars Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio
portray the rest of the boys. Their real life counterparts were
less conspicuous.
"Willis was 86 when he was finally talking about it," explains
director Richard Linklater, who with the help of writer and
historian Claude Stanush brought the true story to the screen.
"They, like good outlaws, kept their mouths shut. True
professionals all the way to the end. That’s what I love about
these guys."
The boys kept their mouths shut so tight, in fact, that
McConaughey, who plays oldest brother Willis, had not heard of the
bunch who came from his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.
"After I was introduced to them, I started asking my family,"
McConaughey recalls. "I found that my dad took my oldest brother to
get his first horse from Joe Newton. He lived like down the
street."
But what separates this story from other criminal tales is the
Newtons’ unique chivalry in heists. The film is less about the
Newtons as lawbreakers and more about the Newtons as brothers. The
four, who were constantly ribbing one another, shared an incredible
bond.
Linklater shares what some of his research dug up about their
relationship. "Joe would be, ‘Yeah I showed up there and with my
saddle and that was my downfall.’ And Willis would lean over and
go, ‘Hell that was your upfall. I gave you a life.’"
The actors portraying the Newtons also developed a similar
brotherly love while on the set.
"Relationships in the film certainly came about from enjoying
being with each other," Ulrich says. "Everybody’s pretty kooky in
their own right. So it kept it interesting."
Along with the new friendships was an opportunity to work with
old friends. "The Newton Boys" allowed Linklater and McConaughey to
work together again. Their other meeting was their 1993 partnering
in "Dazed and Confused," before McConaughey became a hot Hollywood
commodity.
"He’s just the same old Matthew to me," Linklater says, when
asked if success has changed his pal. "He has a van now. He had a
little truck before. Really. Same guy. I’m not bullshitting. We had
the same kind of fun hanging out as the time we did five years
ago."
Not only was it a plus for Linklater that his cast got along
great, but the director managed to snag all of his first choices
for the roles.
"It felt great, the production, everything was meant to be,"
Linklater says. "Everything worked out perfect. It was the exact
cast that I wanted. It just seemed like the stars, the planets were
aligned."
Perhaps some sort of supernatural force aided them. Stanush had
been approached by Hollywood before, but he turned the offers down.
They were full of changes that he felt weren’t true to the spirit
of the Newtons. But when Linklater came around, he didn’t want to
change a single thing. Stanush was thrilled and maybe the spirits
were too.
"When we started working I felt like Willis had just made his
peace with me," Linklater says. "I said, ‘I feel Willis has sort of
blessed us now. He knows I’m making the right story or something.’
And Matthew goes, ‘Yeah. He’s through with you and now he’s with
me. I felt him like in my house last night.’"
Dressed in a forest green sweater, McConaughey talks of what
happened that night, "I’m not even a big believer in ghosts and
shit like that but I was on the third story and there was an office
on the fourth story. And there was stuff rattling around on that
story and I’d go up there there’d be nothing there."
One night, the upstairs windows were rattling. McCounaughey
describes it as a ba-boom, ba-boom. The third floor window was open
and the windows upstairs were cranked open about four inches. A
draft entered the third floor window and exited out the fourth
floor window.
"It goes ba-boom ba-boom. It shuts twice on me. And I went ‘Ah
man.’ So I closed it and started going downstairs and it hit me. It
was Willis going, ‘Don’t close it you son of a bitch. Open it up
wider so I got more room.’"
McConaughey says that he felt Willis’ presence other times as
well. He recalls, "I don’t know if it was a conscience like a
Jimney Cricket, but there was decisions we would make and I would
just get a little bit of kick in the ass about OK, that’s right.
‘Will that work? That’ll work.’"
What worked was Linklater’s adherence to the true events. He
opted not to transform the film into Bonnie and Clyde type of shoot
’em up, because it wouldn’t be true to the Newtons.
"You can’t relate to Bonnie and Clyde personally. You like them
because they’re portrayed as sexy and all this stuff, but at the
end of the day you’re not them," Linklater says. "(The Newtons) are
the kinds of criminals I would be if I was wanting to be a
criminal. I don’t want to kill anybody, but I would take the money
in a professional way."
But Linklater reminds us that popular doesn’t always equal
successful. "The Newtons are like anything else – the best
musicians aren’t the most popular."
FILM: "The Newton Boys" is currently playing in Westwood at the
Mann’s Bruin.
Twentieth Century Fox
Matthew McConaughey plays Willis Newton in "The Newton
Boys."