The salt of the Earth genius of David Mackenzie’s “Hell or High Water” is that it takes this Robin Hood story of justice for the working family over the bankers and the system and makes it purely Texas. Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay (“Sicario”) sees debt billboards mocking our heroes from every highway and has political, financial commentary carefully weaved in among heist dialogue, brotherly joshing and casually offensive and racist quips. It’s so steeped in Southern values and is one of the most richly American movies of the year.
Toby and Tanner Howard are two brothers with a plan to rob small banks throughout Texas in order to pay off the mortgage on their deceased mother’s ranch. The land will overturn to the bank by the end of the week, but rather than sentimental value associated with the ranch, diggers found oil on their property, and they stand to clear more than the mortgage is worth within the first week of digging.
Toby (Chris Pine) wants to give the property to his ex-wife and sons as a nest egg to atone for his past transgressions. He may not be a great person, but he’s got a clean record, a young, ruggedly handsome face and brains. His brother Tanner (Ben Foster) has been in and out of prison and has volatile mood swings with often amusing results, like when he scares off a woman hitting on his brother and then proceeds to pick up their hotel desk clerk. He says he’s never known a single person get away with any crime, but his reason for helping sums up everything you need to know about their relationship: “Because you asked little brother.”
Jeff Bridges, as gravely and droll as ever, plays Marcus Hamilton, a veteran detective with just a few weeks before retirement (naturally). He’s even got a part Native American, part Latino partner who’s presence provides Marcus a wealth of bad taste race jokes to hurl at his expense. Bridges’s character may be a cliché trope, but the screenplay finds a man grappling with his legacy and afraid of his future, and the way Bridges calmly jabs and trolls at his partner, never appearing to be in much of a hurry to catch up with Toby and Tanner, makes his character seem fresh and enjoyable.
In fact the film’s congenial tone allows Sheridan and Mackenzie to sneak in poignant commentary unexpectedly. One minute Marcus and his partner Alberto are perplexed at a spitfire waitress who will only serve them T-bone steaks and a baked potato, and the next Alberto is lamenting that, today it isn’t armies stealing native land, it’s the banks. What’s more, “Hell or High Water” keeps the bloodshed and gun play off the screen for so long, that it’s a sudden jolt when the first death comes in the middle of one of Marcus’s quips.
“Hell or High Water” doesn’t chug along like a chase thriller. Its slower pacing belies that of two separate buddy movies, and Mackenzie loves to linger on forlorn, desolate shots of the open range as a way of setting the mood. He even stages some suspense sequences in single, steady shots, like when a random guy in a Charger tries to pick a fight with an unresponsive Tanner at a gas station. Toby comes in from the back of the frame to dismantle the poor bastard, and neither Tanner nor the camera budges an inch in the scuffle.
Perhaps best of all, “Hell or High Water” doesn’t end in a tacked on blaze of glory shootout. The film has some violence, but its problems are resolved with words. Maybe the more Texas thing to do would’ve been to shoot it out, but “Hell or High Water” may make you think otherwise.
3 ½ stars