Hell or High Water (MA15+)
Starring: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges
IT’S an eerie portrait of Trump’s America – before such a thing even existed.
This is West Texas, boy – it’s big and sparse, the cowboys are lean, and rusting everything and tumbleweeds jostle for space in the parched, washed-out landscape.
The red-brown oil derricks still squeak, and gas drilling has scarred the land. Skeletal cattle hobble between the rusty rigs.
The streets are empty, the towns are dead but for the bright new “Debt Relief” and “Closing Down” billboards.
The bombs that have been dropped here are economic, not kinetic, and the battlefield is now a rustbelt.
“Three tours in Iraq and no bailout for people like us,” screams bitter black graffiti on a wall in the opening shot.
And the banks? Well, they’re just ripe to receive a little social justice from bank robber brothers, Chris Pine and Ben Foster.
And so begins a cracking tale of two brothers, one gentle and one wild, stealing from the hated banks that spent their social capital stealing from the likes of them.
It’s a film that bluntly asks who the real thieves are.
Jeff Bridges is the crusty old Texas Ranger, nudging retirement, trying to bring the pair to justice with his half-breed Indian partner. The far from politically correct banter between the two is a delight.
The script is a gem, with Bridges and Pine getting the best lines.
“Why are the sweet ones always so wild?” wonders Foster.
“Don’t know – never had a sweet one,” Pine shoots back.
There’s much Australian-ness in these clipped, brutal frontiersmen of West Texas.
This is a film of rare beauty, in both its cinematography and its script, and its wistful mood. A must-see.
– Jason Beck
