Robert Redford has career highlights playing lovable rogues – think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting – and in THE OLD MAN AND A GUN he adds a final bow to this trend.

In THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN, Redford plays Forrest Tucker, a sprightly septuagenarian who only ever had one occupation, one he was unusually gifted at and pursued with unabashed joy. It just happened to be bank robbing.

In the early 1980s, after a lifetime of stick ups and prison escapes, Tucker embarked on a final legend-making spree of heists with the “Over-the-Hill Gang,” a trio of elderly bandits who employed smooth charm over aggression to make off with millions.

Tucker never stopped defying age, expectations, or rules – he made his twilight the pinnacle of his life of crime, honing every heist, perfecting the plan, and finding exhilaration in the execution.

THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN is a bit of a misnomer because the bandit never uses a firearm, using suggestion rather than a sawn off, a pleasant personality rather than a pistol, rakish charm over a chamber loaded revolver.

He may have been armed but he was disarming, nice rather than nasty in his larceny, apologetic before making his getaway.

Redford exudes that unruffled calm and charm that Forrest Tucker apparently had.

But, he was a criminal, and so he attracted a nemesis, Detective John Hunt played by Academy Award winner Casey Affleck. Affleck plays the policeman as a diligent but unambitious investigator who is invigorated by Tucker’s style and panache. There’s an admiration that sparks a determination to catch the old felon.

Another Academy Award winner Sissy Spacek plays Tucker’s paramour, Jewel, a woman who takes him for what he is without slavishly falling in with him.

Tucker’s accomplices Teddy, played by Danny Glover and Waller played by Tom Waits give terrific support, with Waller’s Christmas story soliloquy a little gem in asides.

Writer director David Lowery recent credits include A Ghost Story, Pete’s Dragon, and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints continues his run of surprising, character driven stories with THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN.

It’s a gentle, nostalgic film, helped along by a breezy jazz score by Daniel Hart, and a definite homage to it’s retiring star, Robert Redford, who has been making pictures for half a century, and now has stated this will be his last on screen appearance.

As usual, he steals it.