Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Film Review: Hell or High Water (2016)

Hell or High Water
(contains minor spoilers)

It is so obvious from Hell or High Water that screenwriter Taylor Sheridan is a Texan native that I haven’t even Googled it.  The dialogue, hyper-masculinity, derisory sense of humour and 2nd amendment fetishism of this Wild West Road Movie all scream a lifetime’s research in the Lone Star State.

Two brothers, Toby (Chris Pine) & Tanner (Ben Foster), are robbing small town banks for small bills with nothing but pistols and balaclavas and a “shitty” getaway car.  The money, for Toby, is for a family emergency and strictly business, yet Tanner is fresh out of jail and enjoys the thrill of the heist.  The film then evolves into a double buddy-movie retiring detective Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and Native American Alberto (Gil Birmingham) bickering like an old odd-couple as they follow the brothers’ tracks. 

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Film Review: Welcome to Leith (2015)


When a new resident arrives in a small North Dakota farm town with a population of 24 (including children), the people are naturally going to notice.  When they start to plant neo-Nazi flags and get the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Centre’s internal terroirism unit, the people are going to get scared.  When the new guy creates a website inviting his neo-Nazi friends to join him under the headline Cobbsville: White Supremacist takeover, the people have to take action…