{"id":365,"date":"2017-03-28T16:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T22:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=365"},"modified":"2017-09-10T16:03:10","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T22:03:10","slug":"movie-hell-or-high-water-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/28\/movie-hell-or-high-water-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"MOVIE: Hell or High Water (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/8\/8f\/Hell_or_High_Water_film_poster.png\" alt=\"Hell or High Water\" width=\"220\" height=\"326\" \/>Hell or High Water<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nYear: 2016<br \/>\nRating: R<br \/>\nLength: 102 minutes \/ 1.7 hours<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s interesting to me to see how the current social climate in this country can mold a film into a Best Picture Oscar nominee. I&#8217;ve probably seen this same scenario a number of different times, but the reasoning behind it is what brings <em>Hell or High Water<\/em> (2016) into a different category. There have been tons of heist films, and often the robbers have a tight connection, like that of brothers. Heck, <em>The Blues Brothers<\/em> (1980) essentially did the same basic plot but with &#8220;putting the band back together&#8221; as their way of &#8220;saving the ranch.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Partly because this film seemed so quintessentially Texas, I couldn&#8217;t help thinking it was a toned down version of another Best Picture Oscar winner\u00a0<em>No Country for Old Men<\/em> (2007). With last year&#8217;s Best Picture Oscar nominee,\u00a0<em>The Big Short<\/em> (2015), showing how many honest Americans were swindled by the greed of banks, it&#8217;s no wonder that this year we would see the more down-to-earth side of this financial fiasco. Not only are these robberies\u00a0meant to save their home, these brothers also wanted to &#8220;stick it to the man&#8221; that put their family in such dire straits to begin with.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, <em>Hell or High Water<\/em> is a pretty standard plot and it&#8217;s pretty predictable from the beginning to the credits. However, when the citizens of these towns aren&#8217;t concerned that their banks are being robbed and they begin to side with the robbers, you know there&#8217;s something wrong with the society. Granted, this society in Texas was hit hard by the recession, so it&#8217;s no wonder that they don&#8217;t trust the banks that are being knocked off. It&#8217;s realizations like this that help to show why a presidential candidate practically backed by big banking did not win last November.<\/p>\n<p>A modern twist to a standard bank heist archetype, I give <em>Hell or High Water<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h1><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hell or High Water Year: 2016 Rating: R Length: 102 minutes \/ 1.7 hours It&#8217;s interesting to me to see how the current social climate in this country can mold a film into a Best Picture Oscar nominee. I&#8217;ve probably seen this same scenario a number of different times, but the reasoning behind it is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,370],"tags":[9,281,431,433,13,434,8,432,435,436],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-movie","category-nominee","tag-9","tag-chris-pine","tag-hell-or-high-water","tag-jeff-bridges","tag-movie","tag-no-country-for-old-men","tag-review","tag-texas","tag-the-big-short","tag-the-blues-brothers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":693,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}