West Texas is a miserable place in David Mackenzie’s Hell Or High Water, a simple tale of cops and robbers. Mackenzie has masterfully crafted a Western that is modernized and brings in many themes and issues of today’s world. The bleak cinematography overlooks the poverty stricken, rust belt towns of West Texas, while the characters are all deeply humanized by the script of Taylor Sheridan.
Two brothers, Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) are reunited by the death of their mother. With the threat of having their mothers ranch foreclosed by the bank, they have no choice but to turn to bank robbery. In a span of a day, the Howard brothers successfully rob several small banks. It doesn’t take long for the small town to look for help from Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges), a modern day cowboy looking for one last piece of action before he calls it quits.
The story is simple enough in that you might have mistaken it for another movie; it is the content of the film, which eradicates the simplicity. Taylor Sheridan once again finds the second layer in his characters like he did in 2015’s Sicario. Sheridan writes with brutal efficiency and humanity. All characters in this film have some important role in the development of its story, from the witnesses to waiters, Sheridan points out that the true villain is poverty and Hell Or High Water could not be more relevant than it is today.
Pine’s character, Toby, quotes in the film, “I’ve been poor all my life, and the ones before me. It’s like a disease that I was born with.” What would one do to escape the metastasis of poverty in a rust belt town? Every action the Tanner brothers make is thought provoking, and yet you feel a level of justification with what they do. Ultimately, and lawfully, Marcus is the protagonist of the film, but your sympathy lies with Toby and partially with Tanner. Hell shows us two very scratched sides of the coin.
Along with Sheridan’s excellent script is the films cast. Jeff Bridges finally finds his old stride as Marcus, a freewheeling ranger who knows he is smarter than the pack and proves it throughout the movie. Ben Foster is equally reliable and riveting as the older, trigger happy, Howard brother. Bridges and Foster chew up their scenes like an everlasting piece of Pemmican. Though, the finest performance of the film goes to Chris Pine, in what is hands down his best performance to date. Pine has matured greatly as an actor and this is proof that he can do serious drama. I can’t imagine another actor portraying the role of Toby. Pine brought gravity, subtlety and warmth all balled up in a perfect Texan drawl.
Giles Nuttgens cinematography was very ideal for this material, with the very static and no frills shots doing their job and leaving viewers feeling murky and sad about the dull and dirty decayed landscape of West Texas. Many of the shots are from above, lurking over plains and deserts, thumping to the gothic score written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
Hell or High Water is an intense look on poverty and society. It is the most absorbing movie I have seen this year and its themes are very relevant and most of all, very American.
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