‘The Highwaymen’ and the Enduring Myth of Bonnie & Clyde

It’s hard to overcome a legend.

“Time is a flat circle… wait, wrong movie.”

While perusing the web the other day, I stumbled upon the trailer for a new Netflix film, “The Highwaymen.” It stars Woody Harrelson and Kevin Costner as a pair of Texas Rangers tasked with finding and killing the notorious outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

At the height of the Great Depression, Bonnie and Clyde became infamous for robbing a series of gas stations and banks around the country. They weren’t well-respected by their criminal peers; John Dillinger reportedly dismissed them as a couple of punks. Most of their heists ended in disaster, and they rarely managed to escape with much cash.

But the trailer for “The Highwaymen” pumps up the pair as a dangerous duo. One bit shows Bonnie Parker confidently striding down a highway to execute a wounded lawman with a shotgun. The real-life characters played by Harrelson and Costner are positioned as hopelessly outmatched, a pair of aging cowboys facing off against vicious, well-armed gangsters.