Hell or High Water

Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) are brothers, robbing banks across West Texas to raise to keep their dead mama's ranch from falling into the hands of the same bank they're robbing. One would question the wisdom of robbing banks in Texas, where I assume every other person is packing heat, but that's where they live, so that's where they work. Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto (Gil Birmingham) are two Rangers trying to track down these robbers. Marcus is about to retire, so you'd figure he's toast. Except he doesn't want to retire, so perhaps he'll simply be badly injured and forced into retirement.

I can not understand these people who don't want to retire. You don't want to be able to do whatever interests when you feel like it while you still have some capability to do so? Shee-it, if I could retire now I would. Then I'd sleep for three months straight. Then I'd travel.

Eh, whatever, Bridges' character is out of the Gran Torino mold of guys who express their fondness for people through constant racial stereotype jokes, and his partner Alberto has both Native American and Mexican ancestry. So he gets a lot of mileage out of that.

The two brothers argue a lot, because this may be Toby's plan, but Tanner is the one with all the criminal experience, so he tends to run things, and he's more aggressive about it. Tanner is probably the mirror to Bridges, the one locked into a life and unwilling or unable to get out. Alberto and Toby are both just trying to do this to make a living for their families, dealing with these unstable jackasses their partnered with, and wanting to walk away as soon as they can.

The movie stays focused on the cops and the robbers, switching back and forth between them. Which was good, the brothers have a deadline they have to meet, and any digressions with other characters would stunt the urgency. If it isn't relevant to the hunters or the hunted, the movie doesn't need it. I got sucked into this movie more than any I can think of recently.