Hell or High Water, a 2016 release directed by David Mackenzie and starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham, is a solidly crafted modern Western with an old time plot of good guy does bad for good, set within current economics.
Set in rural Texas on dusty lands with failed farms, no job opportunities, and folks struggling to retain what shreds of decency and integrity they have in the face of a system providing little or nothing for them, Toby (Pine) is a divorced father of two teen-aged boys who live with his ex-wife. His mother has recently died, after living on a reverse mortgage on their land, about to be foreclosed and possessed by the bank. While oil has recently been found on the land, and is projected to generate several tens of thousands of dollars a month, unless Toby can pay off about $40,000 owed to the bank within the next week or so, the land will become the bank’s, clearly leaving his children as yet another generation in poverty, with little or no hope of ever breaking out of that cycle – from Toby’s grandparents to parents to him to his children.
Toby hatches a plan with Tanner, his ne’er-do-well ex-con of a brother (Foster) to rob several small banks, taking only the untraceable small bills from the cash drawers and not touching the larger amounts of money in the banks’ safes. After robbing several small branches, they’re close to enough money to pay off the debt and put the land in a trust for his children. As the amounts are small in each case, the FBI is uninterested, and so a pair of Texas Rangers, Marcus (Bridges), a near retired officer and Alberto (Birmingham), his Mexican-Comanche partner, take on the case. Bridges plays one of those wise old intuitive lawman (reminiscent of some Tommy Lee Jones roles) who figures out what’s going on.
For their last bank, they hit a much larger branch and for the first time run into serious problems. There’s shooting, deaths and a chase. Alberto and then Tanner are killed, but Toby gets away and completes the bank transaction.
The last scene is a confrontation between Toby and Marcus, in which they share details of what’s occurred, but delay any final confrontation between them.
The movie moves quite well, has some funny lines and ironic turns, and manages to retain deep sympathy for Toby and his desperation, the nature of his plan, and the folks of Oklahoma, while without preaching, being clear that within the system, the bank is the only thing that prospers through the deterioration of working folks hopes and aspirations.
See it – it’s a first rate old time movie, And the only movie I’ve seen in a theater in a long time that I thought was worth a review!