Hell or High Water: in pursuit of justice, western style

Director David Mackenzie goes for the slow reveal.

Chris Pine and Ben Foster as outlaw brothers in David Mackenzie’s heist film, Hell or High Water.

David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water is two road movies for the price of one, with Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine thrown in for good measure. It’s a contemporary Western crossed with a heist film, the tale of a couple of brothers on a small-scale crime spree and a pair of Texas Rangers on their trail.

The film travels through small towns and sparse landscapes, with a pace that shifts from the leisurely to the frantic. We learn bit by bit who these characters are, what they want and what they are capable of. That slow reveal, says Mackenzie (Starred Up, Young Adam), was one of things that attracted him to the project.

“I was very struck by the way the narrative unfurled, holding off information,” he says. “You’re not allowed to understand the whole motivation of the characters until you get to know them.”

Not everyone involved with the production was as positive about this aspect, he admits.

“I had to struggle, in a way, with convincing one or two people that the audience would be OK going so far along the journey without having been spoon-fed the backstory,” Mackenzie says.

Tanner Howard (Ben Foster) is a volatile, erratic figure with a violent streak; Toby Howard (Pine) has led an apparently quiet life until he teams up with his brother. It’s a different kind of role for Pine, Mackenzie says. “I think Chris did a very important job in holding that character down and not allowing him to have flashy moments or be the swashbuckling figure he’s often associated with.”

Mackenzie shot the film in two sections, beginning with the outlaw narrative, then filming the story of their pursuers. He had to work fast for the first section: Pine was only briefly available before he had to return to the set of Star Trek Beyond and his role as Captain Kirk.

There was less pressure when it came to the second section. Jeff Bridges plays Marcus Hamilton, a crusty, canny Texas Ranger determined to make sense of this apparently irrational spate of robberies, to work out who is holding up these banks and why. Gil Birmingham is Alberto, his partner, with whom he has an amiably fractious relationship.

The actors prepared themselves in different ways, Mackenzie says. “Jeff was very keen to make sure he was representing the reality of Texas Ranger life, so he met a lot of law enforcement guys. Ben did his own research in his own way. I encourage actors to get to where they need to go by whatever means necessary, every one has a different avenue and a different method.”

It’s a mixture of research, experience and intuition, he says, with room for experimentation and impulse — something the director needs to be ready for. “I believe that it’s important to keep an open mind and heart when you’re in the scene; it’s the only time you’re going to do it and you have to take advantage of whatever’s there. If you’re not open to what’s going on in the moment because you’ve previsualised it or you’re rigid about how you think it should be, you miss fantastic opportunities.”

Bridges and Birmingham relished this, he says. “A lot of stuff Jeff and Gil do in the car is pure improvisation.” Not all of it made into the film, inevitably. “I know they had such a good time improvising that they mourned the loss of some of it.”

Bridges’s character, Marcus, is being eased into retirement, a transition he does not welcome. Alberto, his partner, has Comanche and Mexican heritage, something Marcus often jokes about.

“It’s a very sensitive thing,” Mackenzie says. “All of us were conscious of the elements of casual racism that are still there in Marcus’s character.”

But it changes during the course of the film, he says. “It graduates from what appeared to be racism into a certain kind of understanding of race and then into a genuine affection and back-and-forth. It was important that it sail close to the wind — to feel the awkwardness, and then enjoy the way it transforms, I think it works, but of all the delicate balancing acts in the film, that was one I was most conscious of.”

Hell or High Water is written by Taylor Sheridan, a writer and actor (Sons of Anarchy) whose screenplays include the crime drama Sicario and its forthcoming sequel. Hell or High Water was conceived, with Sicario, as part of a New West trilogy.

In road movies, Mackenzie says, the secondary characters are particularly important and the casting is crucial. The waitress who receives a $200 tip or the old man who wants to ask questions at a holdup — these characters, who rarely appear more than once, are essential to creating a sense of place and tone. They have to feel authentic, he says, to have an immediate impact.

The score is by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, combined with selected songs that reflect the time and place. “There’s a Waylon Jennings song that was in the script, so we sourced that in advance,” Mackenzie says, “and a song Ben sings just before he turns off the road is a classic Texan cowboy song, almost a children’s song.”

To that Cave and Ellis have added a score that’s a perfect fit with the tone and reach of Hell or High Water as far as Mackenzie is concerned. “I don’t find it easy to talk about music, but there’s something about what they do,” he says. “It’s got a big bandwidth and it’s epic and huge yet not bombastic. So you can have something that’s powerfully emotional without it feeling manipulative.”

Hell or High Water opens on October 27.