In Hell Or High Water, two brothers Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine) come together to rob a string of banks owned by the same organization that is threatening to foreclose on their family land. Things quickly turn serious as they are hunted by the area sheriff Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and his partner Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). While I wasn't quite as in love with it as the critics' consensus, the film holds it own with solid quality.
Watching Hell Or High Water wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable without the solid cast. Jeff Bridges and Ben Foster were amazing bringing in some of the strongest performances I've seen this year. Bridges' character Marcus is on his way out the door as sheriff, but you get the feeling he's been doing nothing but speaking his mind (in a non-pc way) long before he knew he was retiring. He's extremely stubborn, not knowing how to let things go. Five minutes with Marcus on-screen and you can probably name someone in your life just like him. He's relatable while Foster's character Tanner is completely off his rocker. He's the guy you see coming and you cross the street, that person you know that asks you to hang out but you avoid them at all costs because you know how the night's going to end up. While Tanner is the type of person that has never run across any trouble that he didn't like, he's also endearing to a certain extent as his sole purpose is to help out his brother.
My one gripe with the movie is that the action fizzles in certain spots. Mind you, it's not supposed to be an action movie so I wasn't grossly disappointed, but I expected slightly more from a movie that has a lot to do with bank robberies. Again, not the end of the world, I just want to make sure I tame expectations ahead of time.
At the end of the day, the movie is not about the action but about the relationships between brothers and cops which you come to learn isn't really all that different. Brothers, just like cops, always tend to have each others' backs even when one hates what the other does. In one scene, Tanner finds himself in trouble with two guys at a gas station. Toby scolds Tanner for putting himself in such a position, but not before he beats the crap out of one of the guys and causes the other guy to run away. Meanwhile, Marcus' constant ribbing of his partner Alberto is a typical sign of love and respect. At first you think Marcus is a flat-out racist, but you quickly come to understand that he's trying to pass the sheriff torch in his own way. The insults he throws at Alberto are not just funny, but, in a weird way, a little touching.
Hell Or High Water is highly entertaining even without big-budget action sequences. I give it an 85.
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