Hell or High Water
Directed by: David Mackenzie
Written by: Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham
Crime/Drama - 102 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Aug 2016
Written by: Taylor Sheridan
Starring: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham
Crime/Drama - 102 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Aug 2016
According to screenwriter Taylor Sheridan and director David Mackenzie, life kicks the shit out of rural West Texas residents. If you’re not oil rich, a banker, or ensconced in one of the recognized professions, you and your kin are in for a rough time. Banks feed upon you with predatory loans they know you can never repay, corrupt schemers look to steal your land out from under you, and your children will genetically inherit your misfortune as they come of age in isolated small towns. Hell or High Water is a fascinating journey following brothers creating their own justice against The Man and one law man’s quest to stop them.
Both Sheridan and Mackenzie have already proven they relish cinematic grit and grime. Sheridan wrote Sicario (2015), the most recent of the in your face exposés on the futility and nightmare of America’s war on drugs, and Mackenzie directed Starred Up (2013), a brutal look at a father and son incarcerated in the same miserable prison. Hell or High Water is not as oppressive as these two movies but Mackenzie transforms the vast farms and nothingness of the modern American west into its own prison. Individuals can only rely on themselves and their close family to make it in such a harsh environment. A sudden grass fire chases a rancher and his cattle; the Ranger who happens upon the scene tells his partner there is nobody to call. Fire departments are too far away and it will burn itself out before they get there; it’s a crapshoot whether this rancher’s livelihood will escape the blaze or not.
Both Sheridan and Mackenzie have already proven they relish cinematic grit and grime. Sheridan wrote Sicario (2015), the most recent of the in your face exposés on the futility and nightmare of America’s war on drugs, and Mackenzie directed Starred Up (2013), a brutal look at a father and son incarcerated in the same miserable prison. Hell or High Water is not as oppressive as these two movies but Mackenzie transforms the vast farms and nothingness of the modern American west into its own prison. Individuals can only rely on themselves and their close family to make it in such a harsh environment. A sudden grass fire chases a rancher and his cattle; the Ranger who happens upon the scene tells his partner there is nobody to call. Fire departments are too far away and it will burn itself out before they get there; it’s a crapshoot whether this rancher’s livelihood will escape the blaze or not.
Hell or High Water is full of these brief scenes calling our attention to the situation and atmosphere driving the Howard brothers. Toby Howard (Chris Pine, Star Trek Beyond) needs money and enlists his all too willing ex-con brother, Tanner (Ben Foster, Warcraft), into helping him rob a series of banks. Why Toby needs the money is a mystery, but clearly he is a man out of options with his back against the wall. Perhaps that is why many of the locals are all too willing to forget his face or provide ambiguous description to the authorities. They recognize themselves in the bank robbers and secretly root for the boys to stick it to the blood suckers.
On the law and order side, Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges, Seventh Son), on the precipice of retirement, has his own secret; he is going to enjoy one last adventure chasing these amateur, but smart, serial bank robbers. Marcus has seen it all before in his life as a Ranger and recognizes earlier than anyone the bank robbers are after a certain amount of money and at least one of them has planned it out very well. From the outside, Marcus looks slow and not up to the challenge to capture much younger and faster criminals. Sheridan and Mackenzie take us up close to Marcus and show us a man who knows exactly what he’s doing, who to shake down, and where to perch himself for a day or two waiting for the boys to slip up; this ain’t his first rodeo.
Toby is the brains of the operation but reluctantly requires Tanner’s impetuous attitude and don’t give a shit impulses to pull off the robberies. Ben Foster, channeling his psychopathic character Charlie Prince from 3:10 to Yuma, is the reckless getaway driver, the one who barks orders at the bank tellers, and seems far too eager to use violence to knock his victims off their game. Toby and Tanner show signs they do not expect to come out the other side in tact, fully expecting to end up behind bars and perhaps even in a body bag.
Jeff Bridges, phenomenal as Ranger Marcus, channels a bit of his Rooster Cogburn from True Grit (2007) but far more sober. Marcus’s favorite hobby is lobbing casual insults at his partner’s dual ethnicities. Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham, The Lone Ranger) is half Native American and half Mexican and while he acts mildly offended at Marcus’s relentless racist jokes at his expense, secretly enjoys the camaraderie the digs about fire water and jumping fences build between the two. It’s unclear how many of Marcus’s jokes are teasing or are really what he believes, but what becomes clear is how much Marcus will miss his partner and their sidekick routine.
A subtle theme about the plight of the contemporary Native American, especially the Comanche, whose land all of these events take place in, bubbles beneath the surface. Tanner calls another poker player ‘Chief’ and they engage in a stare down ended by a brilliant slice of dialogue. Alberto makes a profound observation about the destruction of his people by the white man and how the grandchildren of those same men are now undergoing a similar destruction by the banks. Hell or High Water is an action/thriller cat and mouse chase on the surface, but underneath are poignant discussions of rural America in 2016. Mackenzie and Sheridan exhibit a region which may never recover from its economic throttling, but their cops and robbers tale is first-rate, edge of your seat brilliance.
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