Hell or High Water (2016)

This crime thriller about desperate brothers in tumbleweed Texas who go on a bank robbing spree to save the family farm is a modern-day Western that touches on an impressive number of contemporary issues. A thinking person’s action film, Hell or High Water is charged with testosterone (and features plenty of shoot-outs) but is also shaded in with guilt, doubt, and contemplation.

Director David Mackenzie uses unbroken shots and a fraught setting to create tension in both bank heists and quiet emotional scenes (which Hell or High Water treats with equal importance). Taylor Sheridan’s excellent script gives the film clear stakes and nuanced characters while simultaneously incorporating the recession, poverty, corrupt banking practices, gun control, and racial/gender dynamics. His writing is fascinating in the way that it re-imagines Wild West tropes in 2016 and often alarming in the similarities it finds. In addition, the cast is strong and Jeff Bridges contributes another memorably cantankerous performance (along with another borderline-unintelligible drawl).

There are some red flags: Chris Pine’s chiseled, GQ looks don’t pass for a penniless farmer, and the constant ham-fisted shots of context clues like debt-relief billboards is a little much. More importantly, I spent a lot of the film troubled that it used a Robin Hood brand of populist justice to excuse rampant misogyny, racism, and violence. But a fantastic final scene – a confrontation between two characters which generates all of its power from superbly written dialogue – fully addresses and owns that moral ambiguity. Audiences will leave Hell or High Water both exhilarated by the film’s action and excited to discuss the thorny implications of its story.