Hell or High Water

Economic perfidy harvests Grapes of Wrath in David Mackenzie's Hell or High Water, a strikingly cold yet tender look at Texan socioeconomics.

Enchiladas.

Like films that portray Mexico as something other than a violent haven for international drug trafficking, Hell or High Water presents an alternative Texan portrait that cuts through stereotypes and humanistically offers a compelling down-to-earth confrontation.

It could have been a typical cops and robbers stomp but as brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner Howard (Ben Foster) hold-up banks for small untraceable sums to pay off a scandalous debt, and lawpersons Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham) track them, the situations both pairs face add vital brazen relatable characteristics, multilaterally bustin' through the line, with non-negotiable cranked ethical consequences.

The awestrike.

Comanche.

What don't you want?

Inflamed ranching.

Don't rob a goddamn bank in our town.

The brothers forge a classic younger introverted older extroverted tandem, the introvert planning their activities, the extro ensuring they're executed.

Law and order is applied by a traditional pairing as well, the more experienced wiser officer consistently outwitting his go-getting partner, but Alberto is Aboriginal and has several thoughtful points to eventually shoot back regarding the ironic Indigenous state of impoverished regular Joe Americans.

Their relationship investigates the controversial nature of racist remarks exchanged between friendly co-workers.

Marcus consistently makes light of Alberto's Aboriginal heritage, and you can see that Alberto's pissed, but as time passes you also see that Marcus genuinely cares for him, especially when he starts to fight back, that Marcus isn't a heartless crude bigot, rather, he's an intelligent man who just expresses himself callously from time to time to controversially yet shortsightedly lighten the mood.

It's off-the-record professional reality.

Marcus insults Alberto because he doesn't fight back to get him to fight back because they live in a culture where many exchange insults rather than pleasantries without frequently chaotically bloodbathing (fighting back with superiors can still often lead to penalties if they can dish it but can't take it).

There's working to change cultural codes, and having to deal with them in order to eventually change them.

If you can't get into a position of authority where you have the power to instigate such changes by example, and if the people currently occupying such positions ain't changin' jackfuck, nothing's going to change, you have to frustratingly deal at points, or wait for them to die, even if it's conscientiously revolting.

Remember the distinction in the film though, Marcus is highly intelligent, does care, and is friends with Alberto.

He's not establishing death camps or refusing to hire specific ethnicities or races.

When racist or ethnocentric remarks are uttered they do often come from a spiteful place, and telling the difference between a Marcus and a Hitler isn't always so easy to do.

Hell or High Water isn't as cheesy as all this, it's wild and bold and bitchin' and swift, blustering as it caresses, surgically diagnosing endemic cultural ailments.

It's like an affluent way of life disappeared and was replaced with sweet fuck all.

Toby still lays low in the end after giving his kids the miraculous golden ticket.

Self-sacrificing.

May have been hasty in writing that Hell or High Water cuts through Texan stereotypes.

Perhaps stating that it takes those stereotypes and situates them within concrete contexts to narratively theorize why they exist and where they come from makes more sense.

Envisioned facts, fictional justification.

Honesty.

Excellent film.

Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens has an eye for natural beauty.

Deep.