I might say this with every new Western that comes along, but Hell or High Water breathes life into a seemingly long-dead genre. Its dusty swagger and stark vision belie a surprisingly complex plot, a heart of gold, and more character work than we usually see in crime thrillers. Two brothers rob branches of the Texas Midlands Bank in order to save their family ranch from foreclosure by the same bank while two Rangers hunt them across the dusty plains.
It would be easy to view the picture as a sort of exercise in cynicism, comparing the two brothers' thievery to that of the bank, which knows full well their loans can't be paid back by their customers. You could also compare the surprisingly loving relationship between the brothers to that of the rangers hunting them, who, while comfortable and trusting of each other, is founded on dangerously unjust dynamics of race and class. The film also does something unexpectedly unique wherein a Western seemingly concerning the death of the West is alarmingly timely. The film carefully outlines our shifting economic fault lines until it taps into the great reserves of legal and moral anarchy bubbling beneath our social surface. With so much already on its mind, it's unnerving that the film deftly harnessed the anxieties and hatreds of 2016 and seems to have prophetically predicted our new president's rise.
Yet focusing on these elements means missing out on what makes the film so great. Its aching humanism is what remains in your mind after viewing. Sympathetically centering on the love the brothers (Ben Foster and Chris Pine) have for each other and their land, it keeps us grounded in reality and tenderness. While their rough and tough facades are paired so keenly with the unforgiving landscape, there's not a moment that we don't identify with these men. Similarly, the screenplay (written by Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan) allows the rude and crude ranger (Jeff Bridges) to be world-weary and emotionally vulnerable, though his hardened, leathery visage would never betray his machismo.
These men, in the end, are all of us. They are an essential form of American masculinity, one that is at a breaking point and will be dynamically changing in the coming years. Focus on the cruelty and pain, the hope and love, or the fears and desperation, but whichever you pick, you'll not be walking away from this movie lightly. Like Icarus, these men will all try and fail, and as Americans, we know we'll have to don those wings and follow suit, come hell or high water.
IMDb: Hell or High Water
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