I can’t imagine the state of Texas if I’ve never been to Texas, just as I can’t imagine why they voted for Trump. It was humid and hot like armpit weather, endless wasteland and sparse oil wells, rows of dilapidated houses that were listless in the hot sun, towns that were not popular at noon, and streets with as few as one crossroad. I never wanted to explore their lives in the past, but there are thousands of them. Those blue-collar whites who were called "The Silent Majority" in Nixon's era have been surrounded by poverty for generations and now they are now seized by banks for their last wealth, living in an increasingly hopeless world.
Westerns built on the basis of such a world naturally brought a sad and stubborn atmosphere. In traditional Western films, there are no good and bad people, only lords and cowards. Unexpectedly, in modern Western films defined by law, there is still no definition of good and bad people, only the bond between brothers and the friendship between comrades-in-arms. Hell or High Water itself is talking about going through fire and water, being righteous and unwilling to do anything; the wicked brother stood up for a request from his younger brother, "Because you asked", in a simple sentence, he was willing to give his whole unbearable Life. He reminded me of the phrase "for you, thousands of times" in "The Kite Chaser". On the other hand, a pair of more cowboy spirited old mounted policemen, who kept playing racially discriminatory jokes from beginning to end, were obliged to take the guns of their comrades at the last moment and trace the case to the end. At the last gunpoint, the deceased was frozen in the wide open mountains of the western United States, which made me sigh for both sides at the same time.
The film is clean, from the picture to the plot, without branches and sloppy waters, it is hard to imagine that this is a British filmed in the west. With the four characters, the story behind each person can almost be made into a new movie, but there is almost no background to explain, and it depends on the dialogue and the performance of the actors. The 100-minute feature film is all chasing, dialogue, and empty shots. No minute is superfluous, leaving those long and unknowing films with no sense of self-confidence. Needless to say, the acting skills of the three protagonists, from Dollar Bill Blues after the bank robbery at the beginning, to Dust of The Chase, You Ask Me To, I'm Not Afraid to Die, are simply driving across the US road trip. The best collection of golden songs.
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