Review of Hell or High Water (2016) by Awal — 13 Aug 2016

This movie is the Las Vegas strip of cinema. It takes great elements from a huge variety of sources and recreates them in it's own, small world while providing only a minimum of context. They're amusing to see, but like the Eiffel Tower in the desert, you know that it's a pale imitation of the original.

That said, this isn't a bad movie, but it's not nearly the masterpiece that the many 90+ critics' scores might lead you to otherwise believe. The entire movie feels like West Texas written and directed by a NYC film student who knows the geography and people only through watching other movies set in the same location. There are so many cliches in the character creation, the dialog and the cinematography that's it's a bit overwhelming, but contained within the individual scenes are plenty of gems that make the movie worthwhile.

Bridges and Birmingham are walking on thread-bare, cop-partner carpet. Pine does his best "Amarillo Raylan Givens" imitation. Every scene is accompanied by some cliched Texas noir soundtrack music. Once in a while I wished for there to be no music so that I could decide myself on the mood of a particular scene. The recurring billboards on the side of the road are about as subtle as a Roadrunner cartoon. There is absolutely no chemistry between Pine and Ben Foster (his movie brother). There's no reason at all to believe that the two of them would be undertaking something like this together.

But as mentioned, there are individual scenes that are poignant, funny, sad and pleasantly incongruous which make this a worthwhile spending of your time and money.