DVD RELEASES
Hell Or High Water Cert 12A
TAKE a drive into the dark heart of the new Wild West in this gritty and gripping bank-heist thriller.
You’ll often feel like you’re watching a modern-day Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being pursued by the Lone Ranger and Tonto. And that’s no bad thing.
Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges is magnificently grizzled as a cantankerous Texas Ranger who is hot on the heels of a pair of likeable bank robbers.
Days away from retirement, Marcus is partnered with Native American Alberto, played by Twi l i g h t ’ s G i l Birmingham.
Brothers Toby and Tanner Howard are t he f i l m’s other excellent double act, with Chris Pine and Ben Foster taking up the roles.
They are on a stealing spree from the very banks that are threatening to foreclose on their ranch. And they are really feeling the pressure – they have only got a couple of days to raise the cash. Best known as Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, Pine’s leading-man looks and easy on-screen charm often obscure his talent. He plays divorced dad Toby, the younger, brighter and more reflective of the siblings – who also owes months of child support. But neither of t he brothers is blessed with great intelligence or skills and their struggles and ordinariness helps us to empathise with them.
The film is directed by Scotsman David Mackenzie, whose last offering was the brutal 2014 British prison drama Starred Up.
He again demonstrates his keen ear for dialogue, sharp nose for a story and clever eye for detail.
And there’s also a melancholy soundtrack that stirs up the darkening mood, thanks to Aussie singers Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
Funny, bleak and almost unbearably tense, you have to see this movie... come hell or high water.