Review of Hell or High Water (2016) by Michael C — 04 Aug 2017

One of the things that made me decide to see this movie is its high Tomatometer rating. Also a few family members have seen it and thought it was excellent. However I cannot agree with the majority opinion here.

"Hell or High Water" is not a terrible movie by any means. It's just mediocre. Very mediocre. It has a main story that is unoriginal and also very predictable. It also makes no bones about ripping off other movies.

The scene where Toby Howard (Chris Pine) is speaking with his son and telling him that he does not want his son to live the same life as him was recycled right out of "The Godfather". I was waiting for Toby to say he was hoping his son would have a career in politics.

The movie also recycles quite a bit from 1995's "heat" the scene where Toby gets past a roadblock with a fake driver's license is a good example for that. I was looking for Ashley Judd in that scene.

The film's final scene recycles the diner scene from "Heat" as well. The one positive thing to say about the movie is the very strong performances by Chris Pine and Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges.

They are what carry the movie for me. I did not care for Ben Foster's performance as Waingro. Wait. I'm sorry. I meant Tanner Howard. His character was too cliched and formulaic for me. The last year or so has given us a fairly large amount of overrated movies.

You can add "Hell or High Water" to that list.