‘Yellowstone’ Fans Need To Watch Taylor Sheridan’s ‘Hell or High Water’

Five years later, and I still remember my very first time — watching Yellowstone, that is. It was a complete disaster, though perhaps it was my fault. I happened to be channel surfing and stopped by the Paramount Network. The scene captures Kevin Costner in all his cowboy glory. With a riverside prairie as the backdrop, he talks with a small boy who has just woken up about eating breakfast and fishing.

It was just a random moment in a random episode… but it was more than enough for me to nope out and never look back. The dialogue was so cookie-cutter, the acting was stale, and the camera work was a dull pan. How did this show last five seasons and garner multiple spin-off series? Thankfully, Taylor Sheridan has created other productions, and one of his earlier works (made two years before Yellowstone ever came to be), filled my quasi-Western needs.

Starring names like Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges on opposite sides of the law, 2016’s Hell or High Water was the second movie in what Sheridan called his American Frontier Trilogy. This intimate look into the modern lawman will stay with you for a long while. Pine and Ben Foster play two brothers (Toby and Tanner Howard) who rob banks. Lots of ‘em. But it’s all for a good cause: the American dream. Their mother died, and now the Texas Midland Bank is taking her house away. The land on which the home is located also contains oil, which would set them up for life. The boys plan to use the bank’s own money to pay for the loan. Bridges, being a Texas Ranger, sets off to stop them.

‘Hell or High Water’ Is a Phenomenal Character Study

Lionsgate / CBS Films

In this day and age, a lot of people feel the same way about financial institutions, so Sheridan knew what he was making with a movie like this. But Hell or High Water is a lot more than just a story of crime. The film excellently frames the two bank-robbing main characters as siblings who are not evil, but as men trying to keep their last chance at life within their grasp. They wrestle in the backyard, share beers, and have that usual brotherly teasing we’ve all seen before. It’s surprising, but it also serves as a great contrast to when the bullets start flying. There’s gore, emotions, and raw character reactions.

Starting with 1930s Westerns, sheriffs and outlaws were easy to distinguish from one another. In Hell or High Water, those stereotypes become muddled right before your very eyes, so much so that you’ll want to watch this movie more than once. Bridges’ Marcus Hamilton is nearing retirement, but he doesn’t care about that until he stops these perpetrators.

This mission is one of the last few adrenaline rushes he has left. This craving ends up transforming into a twisted and personal eye-for-an-eye chase when his partner is shot in the head. Going to extreme lengths for your family — as Toby does — is a common trait of a protagonist. The underlying roles are shifted here, and it is executed brilliantly. While I still haven’t had a yearning to try Yellowstone once more, a series adaptation of Hell or High Water is supposedly in the works.

More accurately, it’s been in development for about three years now. Whether that ever comes to fruition is another question entirely. But what I do know is that this movie never missed a beat. Whether it was a leading role, a supporting character, or the more minor parts (such as the guy who delivered two lines while driving Marcus during the shootout), each performance contributed to Hell or High Water earning four Oscar nominations and landing on the American Film Institute’s list of top 10 films for 2016.

There was never a scene or sequence in this early Sheridan-written feature that motivated me to stop watching. The pacing towards the inevitable face-off always complements the rising tension, and the detour in the story (building empathy towards the gunmen) feels great against the numerous small towns. Hell or High Water is currently available to stream on YouTube, Prime Video, or Google Play.