Hell or High Water

Always use suspicion whenever a film is critically acclaimed BEFORE it is released, but this time it’s deserving. A modern day western that is as much about the coming changes in this millennium as Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country was about the 19th century confronting the impending end of the Old West! Jeff Bridges is the soon-to-be retiring ranger out to solve a series of robberies committed in branches of the Texas Midland Bank across the state! A divorced dad (Chris Pine) looking to provide stability for his kids and stop the bank that holds the lien on his property, hooks up with his volatile ex-con brother in this cynical take on contemporary financial submission set against a landscape of the new lawlessness. Jeff Bridges represents the fading past; he’s racist, jaundiced and dedicated to the letter of the law! What comes across is that the family remains the basic cornerstone of civilized life: past and present!

[R]