Director David Mackenzie presents to us the glorious terrains of the American South, with cool boys only: Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges, and Ben Foster.
The opening scene of Hell or High Water follows a bank teller as she pulls into the driveway of a Texas Midlands bank. The camera circulates around her at a distance—this circular camera motion, capturing the scene or character from all angles, repeats throughout the film. The enveloping effect of the technique mirrors the plot’s multiple perspectives. The audience is equally allowed into the intimacies of the lives of the bank robbing brothers, as much as the intimacies of the rangers waiting to catch them. The audience is omnipotent.
With this point of view comes the challenge of judging the characters in an objective light. It’s difficult not to empathize with both sides of the chase. The brothers, a duo of a calm but furiously macho Toby (Chris Pine) and the wilder, sporadic half Tanner (Ben Howard), share an intense familial love that is simultaneously remedial and toxic as they rob a series of banks. Behind these two amateur robbers is another duo: an old Texas Ranger Marcus (Jeff Bridges), respected but expected to retire, and his younger officer Alberto (Gil Birmingham), the helpless victim of officer Marcus’s constant teases.
It’s difficult to write about this film because there’s a myriad of relevant issues lying at the heart of the movie, all of which are executed in a subtle manner that makes the film as authentic as it is. Hell of High Water is not simply a crime drama—it’s a depiction of the common Americans, the Americans of poverty. Toby threatens: “I’ve been poor all my life. It’s like a disease passing down generation after generation. I don’t want my boys living like that.” This is one of the many heartbreaking moments of the movie, and the honest truth behind why Toby does not oppose much to his brother’s idea of robbing in the first place. It’s the crushing reality of debt that’s often hushed and silenced, that is also too many Americans’ reality.
Poverty is definitely planted at the center of film, but it’s not the only thing looming over the story; institutionalized racial tension, broken relationships and gun violence stand at the forefront of the movie too. The brilliance of the film lies in that these issues are simply used as tools to emphasize the incredible humanness of its characters. The bond between Toby and Tanner, and between officer Marcus and Alberto is one that is surprising but familiar—it’s the piece of gum stuck at the bottom of your shoe.
Everybody wins and everybody loses in Hell or High Water, and nothing is resolved—yet the film closes with an entirely peaceful shot of Texas prairie grass swaying to the beat of Chris Stapleton’s beautiful, “Outlaw State of Mind.”
Opening in limited release on August 12th, 2016.
Nationwide on August 19th, 2016.
