Scalawag Tom Sawyer and social commentator Huck Finn have been pushed into adulthood several times, most notably by Mark Twain himself (in Tom Sawyer, Detective). But I'm not familiar with anyone who made the duo adults in the contemporary U.S. How would that even work?
Until Band of Robbers (2016), which envisions the duo (Adam Nee, left, Kyle Gallner. bottom photo), as leaders of a band of small-time crooks.
The other two gang members, Joe and Ben (Matthew Gray Gubler, Hannibal Buress), don't express any heterosexual interest, so they could be read as a gay couple.
The gang only steals from "real bad guys" (with plastic bags over their heads as masks), so they're really heroes, right?
The plots involve looking for hidden treasure, rescung their friend Jorge (Daniel Edward Maroa) from the real bad guys, and running afoul of the murderous Injun Joe (Stephen Lang, left).
Injun Joe is white, but took the racist name to screw with Native American culture.
There's a widow who wants to "sivilize" Huck. There's a fake funeral. There's a scene where they wear 19th century costumes. But no one gets lost in a cave.
Tom dreams of homoerotic freedom, moving to an island, where they can be together, away from the outside world: "I'll be the king, and you can be my prince." Lots of longing looks, hugs, and "just kiss him!" moments.
Huck wants a "real life...a family." Tom offers: "I'll be your family," but that's not what Huck means. No doubt he means the heterosexist trajectory: when we grow up, we must abandon childish things, like same-sex loves, for the hard work of house, job, wife, and kids. Strange -- in the novels, Huck is the gay-coded one.
When undercover cop Becky Thatcher joins the gang, all of Tom's gay subtext falls away, as the two flirt outrageously:
Becky: This was a great first day.
Tom: Was this a date?
Becky: No, I said first day. First day on the job.
Tom: Oh. That's funny, isn't it? I thought you said "date." What if...um...what if it had been a date? (Just kiss already!).
After the crisis is resolved, an epilogue tells us the fate of the characters: the two subordinate gang members, now rich, lounge by the pool in the background while we see a closeup of a woman in a bikini. I guess they were heterosexual after all.
Tom goes to prison (where he tricks his fellow inmates into painting a fence), then gets pardoned by the Mayor (which can't happen), becomes a detective. With Becky at his side throughout. At least there's no fade-out kiss.
Huck and his friend Jorge have a montage of adventures before Jorge is reunited with his wife and kids in Mexico. Then Huck hits the road, "looking for a family. A place where I belong." I suppose he could still be gay.