MIDNIGHT REVIEWS Hell or High Water
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
This afternoon’s movie…
“Mr Men, Daddy.”
“What do you say?”
“Please!”
“Which Mr Men do you want? That can’t be grammatically correct…”
“I want Mr Impossible please!”
Review: This one has quite the premise, featuring a character that is capable of doing the impossible time and time again. Quite the promise for any readers or viewers and the film does keep that promise for the majority of its relatively short runtime. Unfortunately, the film does falter in its third act as the protagonist finishes the movie ‘smiling an impossible smile’ which, upon actually looking at the smile, is far from impossible. It’s an ordinary smile. That such an ending can ruin a narrative’s throughline shows the power of having a good ending which, for this story, ended up being impossible.
The evening review…
HELL OR HIGH WATER (1hr 42mins)
Directed by: David Mackenzie
Featuring: Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham
Synopsis: With their family ranch on the brink of foreclosure, two brothers (Pine and Foster) resort to a series of hit-and-run bank robberies in order to raise money. Pretty quickly they have two sheriffs (Bridges and Birmingham) on their tail.
Review: The opening shot of Hell or High Water is its opening salvo, and it is quite the tapestry. Graffiti referencing America’s occupation in Iraq, pristine banks getting ready to ply their trade and crucifixes trying to hold everything up, all shot with blisteringly dry cinematography, tell you from the get-go what this story’s focus is. I’ll admit, as someone not from the United States, I can’t begin to take in every theme at work here. But I’ll give it a go.
Announcing your themes this quickly is an easy link to how Chris Pine and Ben Foster’s two characters, brothers Toby and Tanner, make haste with their bank robberies. The first two are done just as the banks open, without enough time for most people to get their eyes open after a full night’s sleep or indeed for the opening credits to roll, with enough time for a third robbery straight after breakfast. It’s a promise that this film will move at breakneck speed. At least as much as someone can move at breakneck speed in the heat of Texas.
Ben Foster is always worth the money as the unhinged character. This is something we’ve seen before in the likes of 3:10 to Yuma (a solid but flawed movie) and Hostiles (excellent), and here he gives a little acidic twist, along with some Chris Cooper vibes, to the archetype as the brother who has done the most wrong, and still doesn’t know how to do right.
Not far from … No Country for Old Men, with a splash of Scorsese’s The Departed for good measure
Chris Pine, with a wide variety of roles on his CV, shows why he’s one of the most magnetic and talented performers around today. It’s a quieter role, but here he’s actually the lynchpin of the movie. Without his quiet relentlessness anchoring everything around him, it doesn’t work.
Whilst Tanner is lost after the death of their mother, staring out at beautiful vistas he can’t quite figure out, Pine’s Toby is the rudder moving steadily towards his goal of keeping the family ranch in their hands, thus allowing his children to be the first in the family to not have to worry about money. ‘[Poorness] is like a disease passing from generation to generation.’ But not anymore, if he gets his way.
There are frequent turns of phrase that remind you that you are in a West Texas not far from the Coen Brothers’ own in No Country for Old Men, with a splash of Scorsese’s The Departed for good measure. When asked if the two robbers were black or white, a bank teller asks ‘their skin or their souls?’ Taylor Sheridan, who also directed the brilliant Wind River, has written a corker of a screenplay that isn’t simply trading in witty remarks; it is compelling and along with David Mackenzie’s direction means you can’t look away for a second.
Extremely tense and complex
The fact I’ve gone all this way into this review and not mentioned Jeff Bridges’ performance is testament to how amazing the entire package really is. We start with a character that threatens to be nothing more than Bridges going two-fifths Rooster Cogburn, but as little moments play out you start to fill in the blanks yourself. There is a moment where Bridges turns away from Ben Foster and a dozen emotions play out on his face, one after the other. Triumph, remorse, relief, plus the moment he decides to try and hide these from the person he’s with so he can get on with the job. All of them delivered by an actor who delivers time and time again. He’s been in some bad movies, but has Jeff Bridges ever given a bad performance?
The events of the movie culminate in a last forty-five minutes that are extremely tense and complex in a way that is easily communicated. Whilst the plot can be explained simply, and perhaps deliberately so, the intention is to mix complicated emotion into this simple form.
Yes, this is a film about two brothers who will lose their ranch if they don’t rob enough banks before a dreaded deadline. But it’s also a film about the passage of time and what you leave behind for those you care about (Toby is left an ailing farm by his mother, but moves to turn this into a metaphorical gold mine for his own children). It’s a world where war vets and cattle ranchers are left on their own, abandoned by the ones who perhaps owe them help. People who want to move into the 21st century but simultaneously cling to the old ways. It’s all spelt out with the souped-up sports car pulling into a petrol station as a cowboy mounts his horse and rides away, to nowhere. To break out of this form would take a miracle or nerves of steel.
As of writing, Hell or High Water is currently available to watch on Netflix.
