Hell or High Water puts the Western through the 2008 financial crisis ringer. Turns out the combination creates a potent story set in a desolate landscape of West Texas. Hell or High Water is going to be on my Top 10 list at the end of the year, and will stay with you long after it is finished.
The movie opens with brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) robbing First Midland Bank. The robbery was small enough to not be a federal issue, so Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and his partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham), two Texas Rangers, go to investigate the issue. The Rangers are in a race with the robbers to try to figure out what place they might hit next.
Hell or High Water is a ground level look at what’s happened in Texas oil country since the financial crisis. Director David Mackenzie has many long shots of flat land with oil wells being dug and extracted, as if machines have been put in place to suck the resources the system needs. Those machines are also foreboding because they have replaced people for the production, meaning people in West Texas are being rendered obsolete. Much of Hell or High Water’s plot is about people trying to survive even though society is telling them their service is no longer necessary. This struggle puts a fun twist on the story, particularly for the cops investigating the robberies. The residents care nothing for the solving of this crime, because the banks have been foreclosing on properties in this area for almost a decade now. There’s active resistance to the investigation with many citizens choosing to take the law into their own hands. Even internally, Alberto (being Native American) has extremely jaded feelings about banks complaining about property theft. This twist from a normal heist movie gives heft to the brothers’ plight and desire to just….exist.
In addition to the oil wells, West Texas is a character in and of itself. The towns these guys hit are shown in their decaying smallness, with abandoned buildings and “For Lease” signs rampant. The people here are extremely prideful folk, enjoying their independence and pissed at the infringement of chaos into their lovely stasis: open carry laws these people love are critical to the plot. The sweeping shots and slow deterioration of the society here gives Hell or High Water a foreboding sense of impending doom and helps amplify the tension when the robberies take place.
Much of the success is because of the 4 principles. Chris Pine continues his transformation into credible character actor when not playing Captain Kirk. Pine is excellent here, playing a smart but overwhelmed man actively trying to seize back control from the machine that has taken it from him. Ben Foster is playing a more humane form of the loose cannon he’s been playing for a while now; when the material is good, Foster rises to the occasion, like here, using his charisma to dominate the screen more than a few times. Jeff Bridges is doing his Rooster Cogburn with no eye patch. He’s part dick, but more compassionate than meets the eye. Gil Birmingham gives Bridges a decent sounding board, and plays an increasingly frustrated partner very well. The West Texas citizens are also quite good at playing the type, in particular Katy Mixon and Debrianna Mansini (the scariest waitress I’d seen in a long time).
Hell or High Water is a great reminder of how many people got hit terribly by bad financial times, even small towns. The movie flips things like bank robberies on their heads, making us question the system and feel empathy for the desperate people. Also, I will NEVER stop in to a small town Texas diner. 1) Everyone’s packin, and 2) the waitress’s are terrifyingly terse.