The modern-day American frontier. That’s a good way to describe this neo-western film by David MacKenzie and written by Taylor Sheridan. The setting is Texas, and it takes place in modern times, but the story is timeless and could be just as easily set in the Wild West with little adjustment to the story. This film feels like MacKenzie and Sheridan are trying for, and mostly succeeding, at emulating something from Cormac McCarthy, riding on the curtails of the superior No Country for Old Men. The end result is a little uneven but still a helluva fun ride.
The story takes place in West Texas, where brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner Howard (Ben Foster) rob two branches of the Texas Midlands Bank. These robberies are well planned, but Tanner’s more reckless nature leads him to take unnecessary risks, leaving Toby frustrated. Their mother has just recently died from a long illness, which has left their ranch in debt because of a reverse mortgage provided by Texas Midland, which is threatening to foreclose if the debt is not settled. In the meantime, oil has been discovered on the land, and Toby is determined to ensure his estranged ex-wife and their two sons will live a comfortable life off of that ranch.
The plan is to rob small-town branches of Texas Midlands Bank, taking only the money in the tills so that they don’t attract the attention of the feds. This mostly works as the local police view them as amateurs not to be taken seriously. However, two Texas Rangers, Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham), a half Comanche, are assigned the case. Marcus, who is facing mandatory retirement, is quick to determine the robbers’ personalities and ultimate goals.
Meanwhile, Tanner robs another bank without Toby’s knowledge, messing up their timeline. They utilize an Oklahoma Indian casino to launder the money, converting their “winnings” into a check made out to the Texas Midlands Bank. With these untraceable funds, the brothers head back into Texas. After one incorrect assessment, Marcus and Alberto figure out where the brothers will most likely go next and proceed in that direction. Toby and Tanner, now short on time, proceed to rob their final bank, despite it being overly crowded. This leads to a shootout and a chase out into the countryside where it seems likely at least one of them will not be making it back.
The first third of this film is the strongest. We are introduced to the brothers and it doesn’t take long before we have a good idea about their different personalities. Toby is the level-headed one and the one who has obviously made the plans for these robberies. Tanner, on the other hand, is rash and prone to sudden acts of violence. What MacKenzie and Sheridan have done though that is particularly refreshing in this picture is scale back these robberies. After so many years of seeing films ramp up scenes like this, making every bank robbery seem like a massively complex heist, it is nice to scale things back and make these robberies more of a get-in-get-out simplistic endeavor. There is no time for alarms to be triggered, police standoffs to happen, and hostage situations to develop. This isn’t a film about the robberies but about the situation that has forced these two to go this route.
It loses some of that when we start learning about the reasons behind the robberies, including why they are hitting this one bank specifically. Suddenly, there are lines of dialogue being dropped about the banks robbing the people and how they are using perfectly legal, but morally dubious, means to foreclose on people’s land and profit on the misery of others. One character states that he was watching the bank get robbed, just like the bank has done to him for the last thirty years. This was right around the time of the housing crisis and films like The Big Short calling out banks for their shady practices so this target was hardly a new one at the time.
Chris Pine is delivering an eye-opening performance that proves his is better than what J.J. Abrams and Zack Snyder/Patty Jenkins had been giving him. This is a nuanced character that feels lived in and is far more complicated the more you dig into it. Unfortunately, he has been saddled up with Ben Foster, who is just playing yet another variation of the twitchy, slightly askew character that has become his bread and butter. He’s fine in this but nothing special.
This film balances things nicely by also giving us two likable characters on the side of the law, too. We are introduced to Marcus as he stares at some correspondence that tells us he is being forced to retire. He is a man who is still capable of doing his job and doesn’t like the idea of having to give it up and live a life of, what he considers, boring leisure. When goaded about it by Alberto, he lashes back, pointing out that while he may like doing things like fishing, he can’t stand the idea of doing that all the time. These two have a lived-in relationship, a believable friendship that sees Marcus teasing him with some mildly, but good-natured, racist comments about his half-Comanche heritage while Alberto throws his own barbs right back, just like long-term friends with years of mutual respect and camaraderie do. These two actors are such well-seasoned performers that they make this kind of chemistry look effortless.
The film eventually lets them all down, though. It doesn’t really go places unexpected, and it struggles to fill in the time once it gets past that first half hour. It also falls into absurdity during the final bank robbery when the brothers encounter a room full of bank patrons, all of whom are more heavily armed than the police or guards. While the shootout and the ensuing chase are well shot and edited, the situation borders on parody.
Hell or High Water has some things to say about the ethics of the banking industry and wants to paint our robbers as heroes, sticking it to the man. There is also a bit of poetic justice on display in the end when the bank won’t go after Toby for fear of losing the wealth of business now that they are pumping oil on the land. Greed drives the decisions, and it makes for a satisfying, if morally reprehensible, wrap-up to that part of the story. Marcus and Toby’s face-to-face in the end, though, feels less so, leaving things on a threatening note while not really wrapping up their stories at all. This feels once again like Mackenzie and Sheridan chasing Cormac McCarthy.
This is a pretty solid neo-western that is just short enough to not overstay its welcome. There are some tremendous performances here, and everything about it looks gorgeous. But it is uneven and loses something in the final third that causes it to stumble across the finish line in the end. Still, it is well worth the watch. This is the middle chapter in Taylor Sheridan’s American Frontier Trilogy along with Sicario and Wind River, all of which are interesting films in their own right. It’s not a perfect film, but it is perfectly watchable and provides yet another reason to distrust the banking institutions that seemingly run our lives.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Carla Hacken and Julie Yorn
Best Supporting Actor: Jeff Bridges
Best Original Screenplay: Taylor Sheridan
Best Film Editing: Jake Roberts
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Release Date: August 12, 2016
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Gil Birmingham
Directed by: David Mackenzie
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