Went to See Hell or High Water. Liked it. Quite a bit.

Last updated on: September 27, 2016 at 6:44 am by James Ford

Went to See Hell or High Water. Liked it. Quite a bit. 2016-09-27T06:44:23-07:00 James Ford

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When I was young my grandmother would tell me as someone raised in Missouri she knew the James “boys” were good men ground under by the railroads and the banks. Jesse was just standing up to what we today might call “the man.” And that man was pure evil. It’s sort of a theme in our culture, and not without merit. I think of all those ballads that Woody Guthrie and others in the folk tradition have salvaged from generations of working folk ground down, usually by a bank, and then, in some horrific moment, driven rash, perhaps driven mad, doing something. Usually involving guns.

Well, Sunday evening Jan and I saw a most recent variation on the theme. Hell or High Water is what I guess we’d have to call a Western thriller, or, maybe it’s a Western chase flick. It is something of a boy fest, featuring four guys. The bad ones, more or less, are desperate man doing desperate things Toby played by Chris Pine (in another incarnation a younger generation’s Captain Kirk) and his more than a little crazy brother Tanner played by Ben Foster, while the good ones, more than less, are Texas rangers Marcus played by the immortal Jeff Bridges and Alberto played by Gil Birmingham. There are a host of walk on characters worth every bit of their moments on screen from Buck Taylor’s “Old Man” to one of the greats with Margaret Bowman’s “T-Bone Waitress.”

The film is directed by David Mackenzie and written by Taylor Sheridan. Jeannette Catsoulis writing the review for the New York Times summarizes the story. “Furnished with faces as beaten as the vehicles the brothers drive and discard, “Hell or High Water” is a chase movie disguised as a western. Its humor is as dry as prairie dust (“Y’all are new at this, I’m guessin’,” remarks an unruffled bank employee, wryly observing the robbers’ unrefined technique), and its morals are steadfastly gray. The setting seems frozen in time, but the economic decline it showcases could not be more contemporary. As the brothers head toward Oklahoma, the resigned ranchers and deserted strip malls they encounter speak to a vanishing way of life, their journey becoming a parable of corporate exploitation and bleed-them-dry greed.”

Peter Travers over at Rolling Stone tells us “Chris Pine proves he can act. Ben Foster, well, he always could. And Jeff Bridges shows them both how it’s done. Those are just three riveting reasons to pony up for Hell or High Water. Hot damn, this one’s a goodie — a mesmerizing, modern-day western that moves with the coiled intensity of a rattlesnake ready to spring. Set in West Texas, like No Country for Old Men, this fierce and funny hellraiser takes turns into areas where there’s no moral compass.”

The only fiercely negative review I read was Richard Brodey’s screed at the New Yorker. He opens with the old saw about every bad movie being bad in its own way and then proceeds to point out the problems with the film. Basically, he found it over written and felt the badness of the banks was over played.Things are more complicated than portrayed in the film. Okay. However, I notice at least he, too, loved the T-bone steak waitress scene. His final word on the film, “The characters have no memories, no identities, no range of interests, no personal connections, no idiosyncrasies beyond the dictates of the plot and the numbingly clear point that the filmmakers use it to make.” And, he is the pro, so, probably you should keep his pan of the movie in mind.

Now, I’m no pro, and close to the first to acknowledge that in my little appreciations and occasional warnings of the movies I go to see. But I found the writing for this movie brilliant, and I felt those words in the script breathed into life by the actors. And, yes, in a fundamental sense it wasn’t “real.” It was stripped down, only the essentials of character and plot moving inexorably toward, well, toward something as gray as the moral ambiguity at the heart of the movie. The phrase “passion play” rolls around in the back of my heart. The plot in some sense is as old as old. Although it is also given the ambiguity our times demand. A scant generation ago no one would be allowed to “get away with it.” This story is messier, and, in that sense, certainly real enough.

And it should be noted, Mr Brodley is also in a distinct minority among his kin. A full ninety-eight percent of the one hundred, seventy-six professional reviewers aggregated at Rotten Tomatoes like the film. And, while I find it less helpful, nonetheless a full ninety percent of the twenty thousand plus viewers who registered an opinion at Rotten Tomatoes also liked it.

Me, I was mesmerized. I found Hell or High Water a spare story fitting the vast and stark landscape that is lovingly and harshly presented in scene after scene. Incidental to the movement of the plot, but fascinating in a bad sort of way is the full on gun culture on display and without hitting anyone over the head with what that might actually look like, it just shows us. This is a sad story. And, yes, it has a pretty clear villain. I’ve known bankers personally and count a couple over the years as friends, and they are to my certainty people who have integrity and generous spirits. That acknowledged the business is generally one that in the ordinary course of doing what it does exploits working people, and without even noticing, crushes the poor. There is a reason the bank has stood in as the symbol of everything that shadows our capitalist culture.

And this movie, which is an entertainment, is also a pretty good example of that literature of the oppressed that sings a warning into our hearts. A fair amount of it predictable, but predictable in the way a Passion Play is predictable. Beautifully written, gorgeously filmed, and really, really well acted.

Good stuff. While my grandmother would not approve of the foul language of our time and place, I believe she would have approved of the story.

Me, I recommend seeing this movie.

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