Hell or High Water - Film4

(Image credit: © Studio Canal)

Desperate to save their family ranch, Texan brothers Chris Pine and Ben Foster turn to bank robbery

Desperate to save their family ranch, Texan brothers Chris Pine and Ben Foster turn to bank robbery.

However, Jeff Bridges' grizzled Texas Ranger is soon on their trail in this terrific modern-day Western.

The basic premise is familiar, yet director David Mackenzie and actor-turned-screenwriter Taylor Sheridan have crafted from it a wonderfully rich film about loyalty and dispossession, changing times and fraternal love.

There's great tenderness in the brotherly bond between Pine's mournful divorced father and his hot-headed ex-con sibling, but the bickering friendship between Bridges' ornery lawman and his Native American-Mexican partner (Gil Birmingham) turns out to be every bit as touching.

As the plot draws the two pairs together, the men's intertwined fates prove incredibly gripping, too.