Hell or High Water

David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water shows the film world how it’s done.  I’ve seen many movies this year; great films, poor ones, and all of the ones in between, but none felt as effortless as this.  In a quality-starved cineplex land, full of those tumbleweeds called re-boots and remakes, it takes a film with actual tumbleweeds in it to show that an original idea isn’t necessary for that idea to grow into a plush tree that will blossom for years to come.

Stop me if any of this sounds familiar:  Two Texan brothers are going around robbing banks; one of them is sensible, the other less so; there’s a local sheriff that’s a minuscule away from retirement, who takes an interest in the robberies, beginning a collision course that will lead the cops and the robbers to a bloody end.

How about any of the following tropes that take place throughout the film:  The aforementioned soon to be retiree that’s worried about life after the purpose of his job is taken away; brothers that have troubled pasts with their parents and troubled relationships with their women and children, but with a final chance to make things right; racial tension between the white men of Texas and the Native Americans that still inhabit the land they once owned; various shots of sunrise drenched landscape on the open road. How about some good old fashioned country music that unapologetically hums on the soundtrack.

Familiar?  Can you see the picture in question that’s been painted a hundred times before?

What’s most remarkable about Hell or High Water is that it finds ways to be surprising without being…well…surprising.  It tells a very human story with so many chances to go dark, so many chances to turn grim, but it’s so laid back and so funny, that when it does finally strike…it hurts.  But even then, it’ll follow that pain with the same attitude that earned it.

The two Texan brothers, Toby (Chris Pine), and Tanner (Ben Foster), come together after years divided by Tanner’s decade long stint in prison, to rob branches of the bank threatening to foreclose on their family land.  It was their mother’s land, and Toby sees it as a chance to leave something for his two children if he can repay the banks with their own money.  He asks Tanner for help because he can, and Tanner agrees, though failure is certain, because his younger brother asked.  Plus, he gets to shoot people if things to go south. They find themselves on the radar of Texas Ranger, Marcus (Jeff Bridges) looking for one last grand pursuit on the eve of his retirement, and his half-Comanche partner, Alberto (Gil Birmingham).

The film follows the two pairs, making the audience care for both, and sets them on a path to destruction, making the audience worry.  The brothers are hard men; Tanner, at times, is like a recently un-caged animal, as you’d expect, but Ben Foster lets you see the calm behind the anger in his eyes.  Pine is the opposite as Toby, in the sense that he’s the rational one with the ferocity subtly hidden in his gaze.  This gives them a believably as brothers, making all of the emotions feel natural and genuine, instead of those in a screenplay.  It’s familiar territory for Foster (though it’s one he should continue to visit as he’s great at it), but it’s a new one for Pine, and he proves his worth with ease.

Ease is the exact word for Jeff Bridges.  This is a performance that, going into it, I knew he could do in his sleep, but he somehow found a way to go beyond that and prove why he’s Jeff Bridges, and not some guy pretending to be.  Is it yet another variation on True Grit‘s Rooster Cogburn?  Yes, but just like the rest of the film, he finds a way to make it special.  Perhaps it’s in the relationship with his Comanche/Mexican partner, that his cranky Marcus gives so much grief to, yet it’s easy to tell that it’s a relationship built on genuine respect and brotherhood found when every day is potentially your last. Birmingham as Alberto is just…lovely, much like his character.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that this film is as brilliant as it is when you consider it was written by Taylor Sheridan, who gave us last year’s excellent Sicario.  That was another film that, if you described to someone, may not come off as interesting, but once the film began, there was no escaping it’s majesty.  Sheridan is so fluid in his plot and character development that he creates something simply entertaining out of something simple.  That, coupled with Mackenzie’s ability to be elegant with his camera without being obvious, along with knowing how to wring tension out of something as simple as a car that won’t start, makes for one of the best films of 2016.

Grade: A