BAND OF ROBBERS (Aaron Nee, Adam Nee). 95 minutes. Opens Friday (January 15). See listing. Rating: NNN
A charmingly weird update of Mark Twain, Band Of Robbers reimagines Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn as California millennials, and against all odds does a pretty decent job of it.
It’s the present day, and Huck (Veronica Mars’s Kyle Gallner) is fresh out of prison and reunited with Tom (Adam Nee, who co-wrote and directed with his brother Aaron), now a beat cop but still bent on finding the legendary treasure of the murderous outlaw Injun Joe (Stephen Lang).
Adventures follow, including a botched heist and some awkward grave-robbing, and the stars pull off the characters’ transformation into guys a little older than those Twain ima-gined. Gallner gives Huck a worried gravitas that acts as a counterweight to Nee’s childlike earnestness as Tom.
They’re not the only actors enjoying themselves. Matthew Gray Gubler and Hannibal Buress are a lot of fun as the other members of Tom’s gang, and Supergirl’s Melissa Benoist turns up as Tom’s goody-goody love interest, Becky Thatcher, while Lang makes the ruthless Joe a very compelling monster.
If Band Of Robbers occasionally feels like a bunch of pals hanging out and goofing around on an idea, it never tips over into self-indulgence. Twain’s tale provides a solid narrative spine, and the Nees are skilled enough storytellers to make it their own.
