And the winner isn’t … Hell or High Water.
Whatever surprises there might be at the Oscars Sunday (and here’s hoping for something to liven up all that self-congratulation) you can be certain of one thing: David Mackenzie’s masterful Old West-inspired crime thriller won’t be among them.
Despite gaining a Best Picture nomination and three other nods (Best Supporting Actor for Jeff Bridges, Best Original Screenplay for Taylor Sheridan and Best Editing) it’s created less buzz than a fly in a saloon bar this Oscar season. It carries the longest odds of any of the nine Best Picture nominees (somewhere between 100 and 200-1).
It hasn’t got a, well, snowball’s chance in hell. This is a damn shame because Hell or High Water should be this year’s Best Picture winner rather than LaLa Land, or Manchester by the Sea as this Heat Street piece argues.
A richly atmospheric bank heist drama set in the depressed scrublands of west Texas it features a revelatory performance from Chris Pine as an outlaw scarred by poverty and bad choices, and Jeff Bridges, at his peerless best, as the wry Texas Ranger on his tail.
Not only is Hell or High Water the most quietly devastating of the nominees (sorry Moonlight), it has the most to say about contemporary America. If it’s a state of the nation picture you want, look no further.
That inauguration address from President Trump? He could have written it after watching the movie. All Trump’s talk of “rusted out factories” and crime and drugs and people left behind could have described the America so hauntingly portrayed in the film; a land of hope and greatness scarred by decay and disappointment.
It’s a universe away from the big cities—and certainly a million miles from the hopelessly romanticized Los Angeles of La La Land. No wonder it doesn’t stand a chance this Sunday. It’s not about people struggling to fulfill their dreams in Hollywood but paying off their debts.
The interesting thing is that it’s taken a foreign director to make a movie about America’s unfashionable underclass (another reason awards’ voters may be giving the picture the cold shoulder).
David Mackenzie, 50, the son of a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy, is a softly spoken Scot with a love for American indie cinema. “I’m an outsider; I’m not involved in American politics, but these themes are there to be picked up on,” he said. “I can shine a light on them, I can touch on them, but I am not in a position to ram them home. That’s not my sensibility anyway.”
Indeed so. The picture is primarily a terrifically well crafted, character-driven thriller which makes its points with admirable subtlety. For some Academy voters, there’s probably just too much, you know, plot. It’s also heavily Western-infused (lots of Jeff Bridges chewing the cud in a 10-gallon cowboy hat), which doesn’t always go down well with awards voters who are trying to be achingly hip.
Mackenzie was inspired by Depression-era outlaw thrillers like Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger and Thieves Like Us. The surname given to the brothers played by Pine and Ben Foster, Howard, is a reference to Jesse James’s alias, Thomas Howard.
He said: “It’s a reclamation of some kind against forces that are bigger than people. I wanted that Pretty Boy Floyd atmosphere.”
He nails it too. If future historians look for the Best Picture nominee that’s devoid of grandstanding, has something to say and isn’t bone-crushingly dull and self-important — then there’s only one choice: Hell or High Water.