Hell or High Water (2016)

IMDb plot summary: Toby is a divorced father who's trying to make a better life. His brother is an ex-con with a short temper and a loose trigger finger. Together, they plan a series of heists against the bank that's about to foreclose on their family ranch.

Directed by David Mackenzie. Starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges.

Hell or High Water follows two brothers robbing banks and the cop who is trying to catch them. The plot's about as simple as that, though the movie does delve into a lot of depth for all these characters. This is a movie where I appreciated individual scenes and moments but when I step back to look at it as a whole, it doesn't quite gel into place for me. On the positive side, Chris Pine is especially good as the bank robber with altruistic motives: to buy back his mother's mortgaged land and leave something to his mostly-estranged children. Jeff Bridges is interesting but unlikable as the cranky about-to-retire police officer chasing them down, who tries to bond with his Native American partner officer by making racist jokes about him. While the film is styled like a western, visually, the ending scenes land it more firmly in the crime genre, with a familiar "who can tell who's the good guy and who's the bad guy?" theme in its closing. It's honestly hard to come up with something to say about this movie that's cohesive. I'm glad I watched it, because there are some good performances, but overall it didn't fully resonate with me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Hell or High Water > VeggieTales: Madame Blueberry

Hell or High Water < Dark Passage

Hell or High Water < Rachel Getting Married

Hell or High Water > 8-Bit Christmas

Hell or High Water > The Big Chill

Hell or High Water > Charlie St. Cloud

Hell or High Water < The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Hell or High Water < The Green Mile

Hell or High Water < A Star Is Born (1954)

Hell or High Water < Starship Troopers

Hell or High Water < The Age of Adaline

Hell or High Water > National Treasure

Final spot: #1561 out of 3999, or 61%.