HELL OR HIGH WATER

The Data Points

• Year Released: 2016

• Runtime: 102 Minutes

• Directed: David Mackenzie

• Produced: Carla Hacken, Julie Yorn, Peter Berg

• Starring: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham

• Oscars:

  • Won: None, but then again genre films like this rarely do

  • Nominated: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Bridges), Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing

• IMDb Plot Summary: A divorced father and his ex-convict older brother resort to a desperate scheme to save their family’s ranch in West Texas.

Why Hell or High Water is Great

The Structure. What a remarkably well-structured screenplay Taylor Sheridan cooked up; following the success of Sicario, he returned to place a familiar genre in an unfamiliar setting (more on this to come), but he folded the story in on itself to make a lean, mean, film. The brothers’ criminal plan, motivation, and plan to get away with it are fed to the audience piecemeal as the week of carefully planned heists is in progress; our first scene is a cold open on them robbing a bank for unclear reasons. The film then settles into a pattern of heist, character/motivation development, criminal plan development, heist, wash, repeat. However, this film also dovetails expertly between the narrative of the two brothers that I’ve outlined, and the narrative of the two Texas Rangers pursuing them: Jeff Bridges’ Marcus, and old Ranger on the verge of retirement, and Gil Birmingham’s Alberto, a middle-aged (but comparatively younger) Ranger who are pursuing the brothers and attempting to uncover and foil their plot. As they follow in the brothers’ tracks, we get a sense not just of the thematic questions the movie has on its mind, but of the consequences of the brothers’ actions. This is a rather ambitious narrative structure that would normally exist in a longer film, but this film’s compressed runtime is a testament to its not wasting a single moment, and teaching us all how to do plot, motivation, and character development efficiently.

The Genres. Hell or High Water exists somewhere between the Western and bank robbery genre, and is a brilliant updating of and commentary on both. For starters, this film contrasts with most other bank robber movies by leaving us out of the planning; the narrative drops us right into the start of their carefully planned crime spree, and does a little telling, but also plenty of showing that lets us fill in the blanks ourselves. The heists that we’re given also aren’t show-stopping set pieces (save the last one in the town of Post) like they were in Heat, The Town, or any other crime film you’d like to fill in; there is no “one big job” with a vault and duffel bags full of money. Instead, the accumulation of smaller-scale and simpler robberies combined with the pursuit-driven narrative, relationships between the characters, and a wonderfully fresh setting makes this film rather unique in a well-worn genre. An aging, experienced lawman confronted with a generational gap, and a criminal who’s a loose cannon are familiar trappings, but hey, a genre’s a genre.

This film is also both a commentary on the Western myth, and a sharply-thought updating of that myth. In a few of the film’s quieter moments, we get a representation of the sad and crappy life that a cowboy really has, and a man on a horse exits screen left only to be replaced by a dirtbag teenager driving a muscle car and blasting metal music from screen right. However, this film functions even better as a modern update to the same Western stories we’ve been seeing for years: the brothers’ crime spree and fleeing from the law is quite like another favorite of mine, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Jeff Bridges’ aging, lonely, kinda racist lawman is embracing the history of John Wayne’s characters in The Searchers, True Grit, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Both the Butch and Sundance bank robbers and the John Wayne characters were the flawed heroes of their stories; in this film, they’re set up as opposing forces destined to meet in a showdown, neither one being completely heroic nor completely villainous – it’s just the way it is.

The Ideas. Casting the American banking system and financial institutions (but not necessarily the bank tellers or managers) as the villains of this film was a stroke of brilliance; it gives the movie a sense of righteous anger and keeps the audience on the side of the brothers even as their crimes get more desperate and intense. It’s also what allows for the brothers’ scheme to succeed – most witnesses to the act don’t want to cooperate with the police, since the brothers “robbed a bank that’s been robbing me for 30 years”. Given the dedication of some of the film’s runtime to this concept, it feels quite natural and baked into the plot. It’s also one of the things that elevates this movie far beyond a good crime movie, beyond an update to Western movies, into a higher level of filmmaking that deserves the recognition that was bestowed upon it.

The Performances. Every role in this film feels perfectly cast, and the entire cast – from the leads to the background actors – brings the same level of authenticity as the rest of the production. I certainly won’t go through them all but take your pick of the characters who have like 5 lines and tell me they don’t add to the “world-building” this film does. As for the leads, it was terrific to watch Jeff Bridges lean into the “old man sheriff” performance and bring his peculiar charm to it. I’ve already laid out the purpose of his character, but we shouldn’t overlook just how good this performance is – his Oscar nomination was very well deserved. Gil Birmingham as his partner works as a great counterpart to him, and their budding friendship, slightly philosophical musings, and shared approach to solving the crime at hand powers their section of the story to its violent collision with the brothers’ half of the film. On the other side of the law, Ben Foster gives the far more transformative performance than Chris Pine, playing the loose cannon older brother, but maybe I was so shocked and impressed by Chris Pine’s deep dramatic range that I’m picking him as my favorite; are we sure that he’s not the next Robert Redford?

The Technicalities. This is the only film by British director David McKenzie that I’ve seen, but I’m beginning to wonder if I should change that. This is a case where the style of the film absolutely follows the substance, and McKenzie seems happy to allow the script to dictate where he should go as a director; this is actually quite the compliment, as the film’s authenticity in its setting is downright intoxicating. He and cinematographer Giles Nuttgens capture the dusty, bleak, atrophied small towns of West Texas that the film is set in, and then contrasts them with the wide open and beautiful landscapes that exist between these isolated spaces. Every camera move works to establish setting, character, or the frantic mood that the brothers have as they rob their target banks, while avoiding the trap of over-editing any sequence or disorienting the audience. The film is grounded in realism when the bullets start to fly, but there’s just the right dash of Hollywood to prevent us from being too rattled by anything that happens onscreen. I’m also a huge fan of this film’s reliance on its soundtrack of “outlaw country” music; in these songs, the singers express how they like to view themselves as not just outlaws, but sometimes even folk heroes. When combined with the film’s themes and nods towards the Western genres, we get the sense that these brothers robbing banks to pay for their mother’s ranch is the stuff of folk tales, and when the film relies on its own score (courtesy of the vastly underrated Nick Cave and Warren Ellis), the effect is much more haunting; what we are witnessing isn’t a feel-good folk tale, but an inherently tragic collision of two opposing forces.

The Legacy. Well, 5 years on, it’s hard to tell. But this is a perfect example of a few things that I hope will get attached to the legacy of this film. First, it’s a great example of what you can do when you take a couple of genres and their established formulas, shake them in a blender, and then inject your own life into a script. Second, it’s a perfect example of the kind of film that they just don’t make anymore – in the opening credits, you’ll notice several studios’ logos, none of which are big. The big films have gotten bigger, and the small have gotten smaller in today’s studio environment; in the 70’s, we would get the equivalent of Hell or High Water 5x a year – I suppose we still do, but they’re all Netflix originals and not very good. But considering this film got a $12 million budget and made $39 million worldwide and was nominated for 4 Oscars maybe I shouldn’t despair; I can only imagine what we would have gotten for $50 million from a large studio still willing to take a chance on original concepts not created by Christopher Nolan. Like several of the small towns that this movie spends its time in, the mid-budget adult drama film is being erased from the map. Come for an entertaining thrill ride, stay for a special gem that gets rarer and rarer by the day.

John’s Highlight Reel

• The First Morning. What a spectacular opening this is. We witness two heists, perpetrated by men who appear to be brothers, with a very impressive level of technical filmmaking, and no exposition/explanation at all. By the time the opening titles appear as “Dollar Bill Blues” blasts, it’s impossible to not just be in for wherever this movie wants to take you.

• Diner, Parts I and II. In these scenes, we settle into the brilliant authenticity of this film, and our characters and themes begin to reveal themselves. First, we get a look at Tanner’s unwavering loyalty to his little brother, as well as the extent of his wild nature when he deviates from the plan by robbing a non-Texas Midlands bank on a whim. Our pursuing rangers revisit the scene of the crime a little later, and this is where the film’s themes of poverty and villainous banking as a societal ill emerge even stronger; many more Texans than just our two brothers have a bone to pick with the banks, but the brothers are doing something about it.

• Casino. Some of the beats in this scene are predictable, but it’s just so good and so entertaining that it’s hard to beat. It’s also another great example of the “show don’t tell” kind of storytelling this film exceeds at. Maybe my tastes are simple after all.

• Stakeout. This is the clearest distillation of the movie’s themes, both visually and explicitly through dialogue. Visually, we see the tiny and dying town that Alberto and Marcus spend their time in, and the visual of the cranky old waitress is a perfect complement to that. Alberto’s monologue detailing the history of civilizations conquering one another only to be later conquered by banks may not earn him a Ph.D., but it’s the closest this movie comes to staring us in the face and telling us why this is more than just a crime film.

• · Post. Here’s the heist gone wrong that we were all waiting for as an audience, and David Mackenzie knows just how to ratchet up the tension: while Tanner commands the crowd, the camera moves closer and closer on Toby’s masked but panicked face every time it cuts back to him. This relentless scene continues as the two brothers are ambushed and chased out of town by an armed posse, and McKenzie’s patience in letting this chase play out without much adrenaline (but rather exhaustion) is the perfect choice of tone.

• Lord of the Plains. This scene escalates so very brilliantly, and we finally get the collision of the two plotlines that we’ve been following this whole time. The scene hits many emotional beats, the most poignant of which is the tragedy that comes with Alberto’s death, and then the drawn-out emptiness that accompanies Tanner’s. The action feels grounded in both realism and – most importantly – character. Marvel may own the market on spectacle, but all the CGI in the world can’t buy you what we’re treated to here.

• Hogs in the Garden. I love, love, love that this film’s final minutes are a quiet denouement in which Toby is visibly reckoning with his actions and the lengths his brother went to, and Marcus finally gets a full understanding of why Toby did it. The simplicity of his motivation, though eloquently delivered, feels like something of an anticlimax, but that’s another layer of genius in this film; after all these events, all these two characters will be left with is their thoughts as to what it all stood for, and they will have to make sense of it as best as they can. It's a simple, brilliant conclusion to a simple, brilliant film.