Hell or High Water (2016)

HELL OR HIGH WATER  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: David Mackenzie
    Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster,
    Gil Birmingham, Dale Dickey, Buck Taylor
This could be a story out of the Great Depression, or the Wild West. It's definitely set in the West, specifically West Texas, which looks like the land that time forgot, and the economy doesn't remember too well, either. It's a place where the prevailing industry appears to be debt, where if you don't own a bank or a couple of oil wells, you're what we used to call shit outta luck. Which means a lot of folks are outta luck. It's about two sets of partners on opposite sides of the law. Toby and Tanner Howard (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) are bank robbers. Marcus Hamilton and Alberto Parker (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham) are state troopers out to catch them. But the real criminals are the banks, not the robbers, or the robbers wouldn't be robbing the banks in the first place. Mackenzie's approach is evenhanded. You end up sympathizing with all of them, even the psychotic, trigger-happy Tanner, who really should be in prison, for everybody's safety including his own. There's a running gag - at least it's sort of a gag - about gun-crazy Texans in the age of concealed-carry, and Bridges has a way of drawling out his vowels and munching on his consonants that lets you know he once played Rooster Cogburn. The movie ends in a standoff, which is not how most movies, especially westerns, typically end. But "Hell or High Water" is not most movies, or a typical one, and a better ending for this story would be hard to imagine.