New Zealand Listener - November 5, 2016

60 LISTENER NOVEMBER 5 2016

BOOKS&CULTURE

HELL OR HIGH WATER

directed by David Mackenzie

‘F

ast cash when you need it,”

reads the billboard taunting

an empty West Texas highway.

Two brothers, quiet divorcee

Toby (Chris Pine) and sea-

soned con Tanner (Ben Foster), roll past

it in a behemoth pickup. They’ve just

got their “fast cash” by robbing a bank,

which is certainly one way of doing

it. Tanner howls gleefully, the thrill

of pistol- whipping a bolo-tied clerk

surging through him. Toby looks out

the windscreen languidly. He’ll get no

pleasure from this sorry business. There

are still two more branches to hit.

They roll on, past the empty parking

lots and loan shark hoardings. Past the

oil derricks pumping outside a closed-

down gas station. This is modern Texas,

cowboy, where those left behind have

Harley-Davidson handlebars for facial

Cowboys

and injured

An honest look at

the wreckage and

destitution of modern

Texas’ parched

dustbowls.

FILM

by James Robins

HACKSAW RIDGE

directed by Mel Gibson

D

uring May 1945, Private Desmond

Doss of Virginia spent a month

scrambling over Okinawa’s blasted

landscape. On his first day of action,

he rescued 75 wounded comrades, lowering

them down a 120m cliff-face with nothing

but rope and his bare hands. A day later,

he saved another man, dragging him from

God-given

atonement

Mel Gibson’s

overflowing doses

of religious zealotry

foul up a hero’s tale.

Hacksaw Ridge: nothing happens without

intervention from the Almighty.