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Director Sean McEwen chats with STACK about Treat Williams' final film, American Outlaws
Glenn Cochrane
STACK Senior Editor
Crime spree films have become an unfortunate reflection of American culture, and the latest true crime drama, 'American Outlaws', follows three siblings as they shoot, steal, and speed their way across multiple state lines.
Known as The Dougherty Gang, the two brothers and sister – all in their twenties – attracted mass media attention and dominated national headlines when the FBI launched a highly publicised manhunt. Their story became the subject of various podcasts and a polarising article in GQ magazine titled The Whole True Story of the Dougherty Gang by journalist Kathy Dobie.
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Director Sean McEwen (Braking for Whales) sat down with STACK to discuss the film and what inspired him to tell the siblings' story.
“It's a very American-centric story, although I do think that a lot of the themes are universal,” he explains. “I remember a decade ago, it was in the news cycles and it has all of the salacious bells and whistles, like the sister being a former stripper, and they had an AK47 and they were robbing banks. But at the end of the day, what really compelled me was that the story is about family, and once you start digging past the sound bitey aspects of it, there was much more to the story.”
As sensational news stories go, the tale of the Dougherty Gang dominated headlines for the 70-day duration of their escapade but immediately dropped from the radar following its violent conclusion. When the GQ article was published several years later, however, McEwen's interest in the story was renewed.
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“A colleague shared this beautifully written article by a journalist named Kathy Dobie for GQ magazine, and the way that she laid it out, she had done a lot of research, and it came across very cinematic in the writing of it. And that really pulled me in, and the next thing you know myself and my business partner were thinking, 'Wow, there's a film here', and that led me down a rabbit hole getting the rights to the article and then having to connect with the real siblings.
“The next thing you know, I'm communicating with them, and writing to them, and doing phone calls. I eventually went down and visited them in the federal prisons and that was an experience in and of itself,” McEwen explains, before confessing with amusement, “It just goes to show you how these journeys and the filmmaking process can take you to some pretty weird and extraordinary places.
“I've always had my own fondness for that whole 'Go west', very Americana type of story,” he continues, referring to other crime-spree films like Badlands, Bonnie & Clyde, and Natural Born Killers. “They are kind of woven into the tapestry of the American experience. And for this one in particular there were two things: it was really rooted in these interpersonal relationships and that sibling bond that their characters have. And also, not to politicise anything, but currently with the state of affairs in the world the United States has become very divided, and you have a huge part of the population that feel very underrepresented and not listened to, and with that comes a brewing frustration. And I think in a way these kids were byproducts of that,” McEwen muses. “And that's not to say that it justifies any of their actions, of course it does not, but you do start to understand the systemic problem here.”
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The film also features the final performance from the late Treat Williams, which adds a whole extra layer of depth to the story, and McEwen fondly reflects on their work together.
“The sad news is that Treat was unfortunately killed in a motorcycle accident just some months ago, and that was devastating. I was in really good contact with him and spoke to him just a week before he passed away, and it was so shocking to us. And the only good thing, I guess, that comes from it is that we're able to celebrate and honour his legacy through the film coming out.
"We just had a wonderful experience at the Boston Film Festival and they gave a Life Time Achievement award to Treat posthumously, and his son was able to attend, and that was amazing. What a blessing to be able to work with someone like that. He's a real legend, and he brought so much to the film, and it was so exciting to have his stamp of approval and be in the project.”
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