Hell or High Water

Modern westerns seem like a bit of a misnomer. The whole idea of the genre is to capture the futility and struggle on the frontier of America, a frontier that disappeared in the early part of the twentieth century. These neo-westerns have shifted the focus of the struggles of the people living in the rural parts of America away from physical dangers to economic threats. Everything from No Country For Old Men to Breaking Bad has included this in some form or other, but nothing has embraced it fully like Hell or High Water.

Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) have started their week by robbing banks. Not just any bank either, specifically Texas Midlands Bank. They have a plan to rob as many as they can in the week and launder their ill-gotten gains at the Indian casino over the Oklahoma border. The case comes to the attention of Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges), who sets his sights on trying to find out who they are, despite total resistance from a population happy to see the crooked banks getting what they deserve.

A lot of people probably won't know what to expect when going into this movie. It looks like it will have a lot of action like a western or the thrills of a heist movie and it has both of those, but in very limited doses. It is however a slow burning western that focuses on its themes and characters on both a small and grand scale, something which a lot of movies in general are incapable of doing. The economic reality of places like rural Texas is that they never bounced back from the global financial crisis of 2008, but they can see that big cities in their own country are saying that it's over. I don't want to make this review about Donald Trump, and this movie isn't about him, but more than anything this movie really shows the landscape that a political movement like his can be born out of. There are so many references to the fact that small town America is lost and that families are being put out of a living and that's what makes this movie great. There's a level of realism simmering just below the surface that may not be in keeping with the classic idea of realism that was built all those years ago in post-war Italy, but it's there all the same.

The other thing that makes this movie fantastic is its characterisation. There is a distinct lack of characters that have any bearing on the plot and none of these characters are the archetypes that you would find in a western or heist film. Jeff Bridges has played a law man many times before, but never has he been such an abrasive and unlikeable character. Not only is he always antagonising his Mexican/Native American partner Alberto (played so perfectly by Gil Birmingham), but he fails to identify the world in which the other characters live. Chris Pine's Toby is reminiscent of Jake Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler, however his thinness comes from the lack of available food. Ben Foster plays a special level of unhinged that is similar but different to his regular unsettling character.

Hell or High Water is a surprising look at the current economic reality of rural America. It also fights the conventions of genre so much that it transcends any genre and becomes a realistic portrait of life. This is one of those quiet movies that slip past people but ends up winning awards without people knowing it. Definitely go watch it.

Inferno

I'm not one to be disappointed by movie adaptations of books. This isn't because I know that they'd get them right, rather I don't let my hopes get too high due to the inevitability that they will butcher the source material. I don't know why I let my guard down with the latest Dan Brown adaptation. Past experiences with The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons should have taught me otherwise, but I ended up getting hurt more than ever with this one.

Harvard professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) wakes up in a hospital in Florence with no memory of how he got there and a head wound. His attending doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), explains that he arrived at the hospital with bloodied clothes and that his head wound has caused amnesia, but his memory should return. Before any of this can be processed, he is attacked by Vayentha (Ana Ularu), a mysterious assassin disguised as an Italian police officer. Soon Langdon and Brooks discover that he was there to prevent the release of a plague that could wipe out half of the world's population, a plan devised by Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), a scientist concerned with overpopulation and who died at the start of the film.

Let me talk about the brief positives of the film before I get into how it devastated me. The film really captured the effects of amnesia and really eased the audience into the story. This is a pretty creative way to convey the confusion of the characters as well as not giving away everything at once. The scenery is spectacular, but that's what is expected when you set your film in Florence, Venice and Istanbul.

I know this isn't a book review, so I won't go into too much detail about it. While Dan Brown's writing is somewhat formulaic, the ending of the book was very different and original. While the movie has the super Hollywood ending (spoilers!) of Langdon stopping the plague from being released and saving the world, the book actually reveals that the plague has already been released and the day that they spent trying to stop was actually the day when the whole world would be infected. Instead of the plague killing people, it actually just made a third of the population infertile, a trait that may or may not be passed down through the gene pool. This ending is so much better and would make people stop and think. But because of Hollywood, we now just got a movie that everyone will forget because it lacks anything to make it stand out. That just defeats the purpose of making a movie, you want something that lasts the test of time to make as much money as possible.

Even if you haven't read the book on which it's based, Inferno is a pretty dreary movie. It sets an exhilarated pace that it can't keep up with. This is combined with a bland and conventional story, as well as confusing twist, to make an unforgettable movie that no one wanted.

The Finest Hours

I’ve talked before about my love-hate relationship with disaster movies. Why just last year I thoroughly enjoyed Everest, (and seemed to be the only one) whilst other more bombastic films like San Andreas prove to be the steaming-turds they make themselves out to be. It’s rather fitting that most disaster movies by their very nature seem to teeter on the edge of failure, with many falling deep into the abyss of characterless, CGI-driven ludicrousy. For this very reason it’s all the more rewarding to sift through the crap and find those movies that actually bring something to the genre. Disney’s The Finest Hours is not one of those movies 

In 1952 off the New England coastline, a north-easterly shears the oil tanker SS Pendleton in half. The coast guard are dealing with another tanker in a similar position and can’t afford to send all their men to it. Bernard Webber (Chris Pine) is selected to pilot a lifeboat to the Pendleton, a lifeboat which is only designed to hold 12 people, but with 32 crewmen to save. 

It’s clear that the best disaster films hold a close relation to adventure films, whether it be Everest, Twister or All is Lost, there’s something about pioneers/explorers and their tragic destinies that appeal, and like a lot of films it helps if the story is grounded with realism and not Mayan prophecies. The Finest Hours bases itself off the true story of the SS Pendleton, and right off the bat it would be wise to read up before you enter the cinema, because the impenetrable New England accents combined with the gale-force sound effects make it almost impossible to understand what is going on most of the time. Directed by Craig Gillespie of Disney’s Million Dollar Arm, an equally unambitious movie, The Finest Hours seems content with letting melodrama and routine plot drive the movie, and as such it became increasingly difficult to invest in the characters or the events. 

Chris Pine gives a flat uninteresting performance equaled by many of the supporting cast, and honestly the only noteworthy performance was Casey Affleck. There’s an air of the old-fashioned both in the setting and style of this film and thankfully the CGI manages to restrain itself in the big set pieces, although by the time we get to these, any sense of tension is well and truly gone. I do respect the decision to take the time to try and build some of the characters, but as it focuses on two parties - those on the wrecked ship and the coastguard - it still never really gives enough time to any of them whilst still managing to slow the film down and move away from the action. There’s also a love story which feels very much tacked on. 

There’s not a lot more to say about The Finest Hours. Despite, or perhaps due to a surprisingly reserved style of filmmaking it fails to deliver on a story that had potential. Maybe that’s why it’s ended up in the early ‘dumping ground’ period of the year.