The Old Man & the Gun
Opens: November 15
Genre: Caper comedy/romance
Duration: 94 minutes

Billing this light-hearted crime romp as the octogenarian Robert Redford’s final movie role is nice marketing, but it may turn out to be untrue. Only days after telling a journalist of his retirement decision the veteran actor announced he’d wished he was keeping his mind open to further acting offers.

Regardless of where his career finally comes to rest, this film written and directed by David Lowery (whose diverse credits include Disney animation Pete’s Dragon and 2017’s quasi-experimental A Ghost Story) brings warm reminders of the actor’s most popular strengths – the effortless incarnation of lovable rogues, reaching back to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting.

Again Redford plays a criminal the audience can’t help but root for, this time in the form of a gentlemanly bank robber at that advanced age where tea and biscuits at bingo tends to be more of a favourite pastime than bank jobs. While this is loosely based on a true story, it’s also an unlikely one belonging to the truth-that’s-stranger-than-fiction tradition. Redford – whose face is now more ridged...