Moviestore/ShutterstockSince the decline of the western, there have been constant efforts to reinvigorate the genre for contemporary audiences. As we are beyond the days of cowboys and shootouts in the middle of the street, how do you adapt the genre conventions for the present day? This has been the success of Taylor Sheridan’s ascent to stardom — in the shows written, directed, or produced by him for Paramount, the multihyphenate has figured out the formula. But this knack didn’t start with Yellowstone or Landman. The prototype for what those shows would become is found in 2016’s Hell or High Water.Directed by David Mackenzie, Hell or High Water is the second in Sheridan’s trilogy about life in the American Frontier, focused on the evolution of society in the face of technological and societal changes over the last 100-plus years. Set in rural Texas, Hell or High Water begins as a traditional cops-and-robbers western as we follow two brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) as they rob banks and launder their earnings. Hot on their trail are a pair of Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham). This film is light on plot and expository dialogue which is exactly how Sheridan intended it to be. Instead, it’s focused on the lives of these brothers, to explain why they’re robbing banks in the first place.The film drip feeds information through the first two acts. Sheridan’s script focuses on setting the stage of who our pairs are as people, giving us a reason to feel divided between who to root for. Is it the brothers, who rob banks from one branch and are just trying to pay back the mortgage on their land? Or is it our law-abiding officers, an odd couple made up of the well-worn trope of an officer close to retirement, but clearly still ahead of the curve when it comes to his crime-solving acumen, and his younger partner putting up with the elder’s racism under the guise of jokes and camaraderie? The characters of the brothers are established quickly with their opening bank robberies. One of them, Toby, says “Please” and “Thank you” to tellers and profusely apologizes for frightening them. While the other, Tanner, is violent and the one who is willing to stick his gun in someone’s face, traits fully displayed when he robs a bank unbeknown to Toby. This leads to the Texas Rangers developing a trail to follow them, setting in motion the rest of the film.The officers verbally spar until they come to an understanding that they truly aren’t any different. One states to the other that “150 years ago, all this was my ancestors’ land, everything you can see…Until the grandparents of these folks took it, and now it’s been taken from them.” The film makes it clear here that the enemy of the townspeople are these predatory banks that trap people in a cycle with no end in sight. There’s no way to make a steady living that elevates your financial status, just maintaining efforts to survive. Earlier in the film we witness one of the officers try to take tip money from a waitress, stating it’s evidence in a robbery Tanner commits, but she bites back that this is half of her mortgage. An older man then says that he’s lived in town long enough to “watch a bank get robbed that’s been robbing me.”Hell or High Water deftly plays our sympathies for both sides of the law. | Moviestore/ShutterstockThe film waits until the hour mark to reveal that the Texas Midlands Banks that the brothers have been robbing are the same banks that put the financial squeeze on their family. A worker at the bank tells them that they loaned out the minimum they could to keep the family poor and wait until their mother died before making an effort to steal the land from under the family’s nose. Here, the film transitions from a standard cops-and-robbers western to a revenge story. The boys operate as twisted Robin Hood figures. They aren’t taking from the rich to give to the poor, however, but rather selfishly for themselves. Sheridan stated that the script was born out of his anger of the cycle of poverty and dissolution of people’s lives in the wake of the housing crisis. You can feel that anger manifest both in how the plot unfolds along with how we witness characters develop in this film.Since 2018, Taylor Sheridan has been unavoidable. He has established an empire for Paramount’s television arm, cementing himself in this new era of streaming television as the emperor of the medium. But the seeds of his empire were sown in the film industry — Sicario, Wind River, and Hell or High Water carry elements of what you find in Lioness, Yellowstone, or Tulsa King. Morally grey protagonists such as those found in Sicario or Hell or High Water are the lifeblood of his television shows. Sheridan has displayed an ability to create worlds that feel lived in, turning Montana into his new territory that he explores. The gruff and surly elder who is masquerading finer qualities under his exterior makes up several characters in his television shows, traces of Jeff Bridges’ portrayal as Ranger Marcus can be found in Sylvester Stallone or Billy Bob Thorton in Tulsa King or Landman It’s worth looking back on the 10 year anniversary of this film to witness his ascent. For my money, Hell or High Water remains his best work to date.Hell or High Water is streaming on HBO Max.