HELL OR HIGH WATER

Hell or High Water

Grade: B+

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Gil Birmingham

Premise: Two brothers carry out a pair of low-key busts in Texas banks, bringing a tough but elderly sheriff onto their trail

Rated R for language, bloody violence, and a scene of sexual content

Whew, finally! After three months of (mostly) dreadful big-budget, over-the-top, branded and packaged cash-grab releases that were starting to ruin even this writer’s faith in the magic of movies comes a small, low-key, well-acted cops-and-robbers yarn that feels like a breath of fresh air. Mixing a talky screenplay about good old boys and a crotchety old coot in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse with simple, often breathtaking shots of western scenery, and an underlying message of humans’ morality and tendency toward violence, Hell or High Water definitely won’t be a film that captures the attention of the popular culture—and it may not be the most original one, either—but it reminds you what moviemaking can be when quality, not money, is the most important factor.

Plot

Widowed Sheriff Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) is mere weeks away from retirement when a case comes across his desk. It’s not sexy, but it catches his attention nonetheless. It seems a pair of local cowboy types has pulled off busts of two local Texas Midlands Banks, taking only the cash in the drawers and then hustling out. They tend to do so in the early morning, when the banks aren’t busy. Since there are no bodies and a rather small bottom line stolen (about $40,000), the case is far too plain to attract large-scale attention, but Sheriff Hamilton senses a chance to get back in the game and have one last adventure before he hangs up his badge. So, he and his laconic half-Native American/half-Mexican partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham) hop in their truck and head out to investigate.

The good old West Texas boys carrying out the busts are a pair of brothers, one fresh from prison and both crippled by generations of poverty and the recent passing of their mother. Tanner (Ben Foster) is the hothead, a wild man who would probably rob the banks for the thrill of it, even if he got no money. Toby (Chris Pine) is the gentler soul, one who doesn’t like handling guns or harassing anybody but needs money for overdue child support and mortgage payments. After pulling off three local busts, the boys hang around a casino where they do some drinking and gambling and Toby considers how to best utilize the winnings to benefit his estranged sons. Then they decide to pull off one more bust, this one at a bigger bank, one that just so happens to be down the road from where Hamilton and Alberto have been investigating.

What Works?

Cops-and-robbers movies are always interesting, especially when you get to know both sides, and especially when they take place in Texas, where everyone is folksy, sporting cowboy hats and thick accents, and toting guns. Similar to the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men, Hell or High Water is a fine cocktail of the thrill of law and crime and the provincial touches of good old Texas. It also conjures memories of that film in that it builds slowly, bit by bit reveals the stories and lives and motivations of both sides, and yet takes it sweet time getting to anything particularly dramatic. In that way, it’s not “Hollywoodized”, which is nice. And when the drama and action comes, it makes it that much more impactful, because it feels real and lived-in and not computerized and artificial like the action in this summer’s biggest titles.

The screenplay by Taylor Sheridan—a former Sons of Anarchy actor who wrote last year’s savagely-gritty drama Sicario—is a small marvel, weaving entire lives and worlds out of fairly short conversations between people speaking in heavy accents and backwoods verbiage. Working with this fine material, the actors shine. Bridges’ Sheriff Hamilton looks and talks a lot like the actor’s take on Rooster Cogburn in the 2010 remake of True Grit, but the lawman the Oscar winner plays here is not just a seasoned, tough man, but an old man. Hamilton may have the heart of a younger, more adventurous man, but he is haunted by his increasingly solitary life and the retirement home existence that likely awaits him. Bridges, 67, is perfectly-cast. Ben Foster all but steals the show as the fierce and unpredictable Tanner, the actor rebounding nicely from his embarrassing turn in this summer’s woeful Warcraft. Star Trek’s Chris Pine is very effective as a man torn by obligations and loyalty. And Gil Birmingham plays nicely off Bridges’ old-man chatter as the butt of Sheriff Hamilton’s many jokes.

With its ranch sceneries and roads bordered by open plains, Hell or High Water looks great. It also has more than a few laughs, and yet it gradually builds the tension. Many audience members will be spellbound, waiting for things to explode. And they do.

What Doesn’t Work?

There isn’t a lot that fails to work in this well-crafted film. The movie certainly does bear a lot of similarities to many films of this genre (No Country For Old Men included), but it has a DNA all its own. My one complaint would be that, though there are life-or-death stakes present in criminals fleeing the law, the movie often feels as if it’s too simple and is going nowhere. Good as the writing and acting is, the focus is small, and once the major conflict is resolved, there aren’t a lot of places for the movie to go.

Content

Hell or High Water earns its R rating with an abundance of F-words and violence that is quite bloody when it comes. There’s also a brief scene of sexuality, though the interaction takes place in the background of the shot and nothing is clearly seen.

Bottom Line

A nice antidote for the serious moviegoer after a messy summer of underwritten and overblown big-budget misfires, Hell or High Water is a scaled-down classic cops-and-robbers story. It has well-developed characters and action scenes that aren’t blown out of proportion or coming from nowhere. A pretty hard R thanks to some salty language and a few bloody shootouts, this movie has some fantastic cinematography (beautiful landscapes), great writing, and features fine acting turns by Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster.

Hell or High Water (2016)

Directed by David Mackenzie

Screenplay by Taylor Sheridan

Rated: R

Length: 102 minutes