Hell or High Water 2016

B+

This was such a small movie that I don’t think I even heard of it until I was standing in line at Best Buy on Black Friday buying a bunch of discounted Blu-rays and a worker looked at my choices and said I would like this one (but I didn’t buy it since I was already spending more than I planned). I was glad to catch it on cable the next year. While it got raves from critics, one complaint I heard was that it was slow, which I can be okay with. It is definitely slow, sort of a character study, but it also isn’t that complicated and the characters are pretty much what you think they are, just a cops and robbers story essentially and you sort of know how it will turn out. It is nicely done, and Jeff Bridges as a Texas ranger facing retirement talks so gravely and low that I had a hard time understanding him. Still, he brings depth to the part like few people can. I don’t think that performance or the other very good performances were enough to raise a slow and simple movie to the top tier, but I can see how film critics would like how the movie takes its time and lets the characters and acting carry the load.

Written: 27 Aug 2017

Owned on: Digital