Hell or High Water
Spoiler-Free Review
Note: By “spoiler-free” I mean that I’ve included slightly more than you would find in the movie info section of Rotten Tomatoes. I comment on the look and feel, and discuss (in a broad way) the kind of movie it is, which sometimes involves generally describing character traits and scenes without going into any specifics.
TL;DR: Hell or High Water is great. You should go see it.
If I could use only one word to describe Hell or High Water it would be “authentic”. In the midst of exposition-laced Hollywood blockbusters Sicario screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (who makes a brief cameo as a cowboy in the film) clips both ends off of sentences and buries their subjects.
Brothers Tanner (Ben Foster) and Tobey (Chris Pine) refer to background characters, situations, and plot points without naming them directly because, y’know, they’re brothers. This in and of itself is not impressive. It’s Sheridan’s ability to craft conversations which imply significant details without holding our hands that is truly remarkable.
Relationships are the engine of the film, which juxtaposes Texas Rangers Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto (Gil Birmingham) with the outlaw brothers in a way that seems more matter-of-fact than your typical cops and robbers flick. There is love beside pain and heroism without heroes, which takes a concept that could easily become artificial and preachy and makes it slice-of-life (even if most of us aren’t out robbing banks day-to-day).
Nothing about Hell or High Water feels staged or contrived. We aren’t handed polar opposite adversaries or even ones whose stories and motivations intersect in a way that’s both painful and obvious. Though the film has a message, and thematic layers galore, the characters are (thankfully) unaware of their roles.
The movie is decidedly unsexy.¹ We drive down long stretches of road hugged on either side by the trappings of rural poverty. If you’re quick you’ll spot a billboard advertising debt relief; some graffiti announcing that the artist served in Iraq, but that bailouts aren’t designed for “people like us”.
Police work and bank robbery — typically romanticized on the silver screen — are treated more like setting than plot. This isn’t a film about daring or bravado. We don’t see duffel bags full of cash, fancy submachine guns, or overdramatized standoffs.
We see casual racism and the way power dynamics and relationships alter perceptions about it. We see poverty and desperation in relation to crime. We see solidarity and class collaboration. This is a film about the white working class.
The pacing is leisurely (it’s a western, after all), but Hell or High Water doesn’t bore. A frequently restless camera pans and sweeps creating an unconscious unease that creeps up on you as the tension builds. It’s probably appropriate to reiterate that this is not an action film, nor is it a heist movie. It is a movie that takes the subject of rural poverty — one frequently ignored or twisted — and lifts it up dispassionately. A radical act which wrenches the poor southerner from the grips of stereotype.
Hell or High Water is timely given the upcoming election. With the rise of Donald Trump the white working class has been put under a blurry and malfunctioning microscope, owing largely to a myopic narrative, which may neatly categorize the things we think, but cannot accurately reflect the social, economic, and political terrain.
(1) They clearly try to mask Chris Pine’s sexy, but it’s tough.
********************Spoilery Addendum Below!********************
I thoroughly enjoyed the nested themes in this film. Let’s start from the outside in.
We have the history of the United States — the imperialist genocide against the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
We have Alberto (Gil Birmingham): the half-Comanche half-Mexican partner to Marcus (Jeff Bridges). Alberto’s relationship with the overtly racist Marcus is complex. On some level it’s clear that Alberto and Marcus are genuine friends. Still, it’s apparent that while Marcus sees absolutely no harm in his “jokes”, Alberto is deeply affected — simmering beneath the surface and unable to truly express his anger because of the multitude of power dynamics present in their relationship.
Next we have the subprime mortgage crisis — one in a string of capitalist crises — resulting in a massive land grab by the banks.
We have the bank threatening to foreclose on Pine and Foster’s family land under some ostensibly shady circumstances (“You know the bank loaned just enough to keep your mama poor. Thought they could swipe her land”).
This leads to our cops and robbers set-up. While this set-up frequently blurs the line between cop and criminal, Hell or High Water does something different with it.
At one point Alberto lays it all out for us. The colonizers stole the land from the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Then the wealthy descendants of the colonizers (embodied, in this case, by the banks) stole the land from the poor. The legacy of private property and wealth is murder and theft. Ownership at all levels is legitimized by historical violence.
Isn’t stealing from the bank that’s trying to steal from you just David juking Goliath? What, then, is the economic/social/political role of two Texas Rangers whose job it is to hunt bank robbers and not banks?
