(CNN) What looks like a can't-miss concept -- the aging lawmen who hunted down Bonnie and Clyde -- yields a dutiful, uninspired movie in "The Highwaymen," pairing Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson as the taciturn Texas Rangers called out of retirement, which roughly approximates what will likely be the film's target demo.

Despite the star power, "Highwaymen" rather simple-mindedly follows a familiar road map, nostalgically hearkening back to a day when nobody needed to worry about reading Miranda rights and a cop could say -- as Costner's Frank Hamer does -- "You know you're gonna have to put this man down."

That man would be Clyde Barrow, who with Bonnie Parker left a trail of bodies in their wake, while achieving Depression-era celebrity -- cold-blooded killers who were, it's noted, "more adored than movie stars."

Unlike the 1967 movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway (where did the time go?), the outlaws are essentially relegated to an off-screen afterthought, following an introductory sequence in which Bonnie helps break Clyde out of a Texas prison in 1934.

Texas' governor, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson (Kathy Bates, without much to do but snarl), agrees to enlist former rangers to undertake the manhunt. But even she sounds dismissive of the aging cowboys, referring to them as "a couple of has-been vaqueros."

Read More