This contains spoilers about the movie, ‘Hell Or High Water’. If you’re planning to see the movie, don’t read further, unless you’re okay knowing some important matters.

My wife and I watched the Academy Award nominated movie, ‘Hell Or High Water’. It stares Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Gil Birmingham and Jeff Bridges. There are women in this movie but this is about men, men and their relationships to one another, life, and women.

It’s a harsh movie, mournful and painful. Watching it, you think, “Jesus, people in Texas are really angry and (or) mean.” And you know, almost from the beginning, what will happen. If, after watching five minutes, you asked me to write down what events will take place, I would have written this down.

Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) will be alive. His partner, Alberto Parker (Birmingham) will be dead.

Tanner (Ben Foster) will be dead. Marcus will kill him. Tanner will nobly sacrifice himself for his brother, Toby (Chris Pine). Pine will be shot but he’ll live. Pine will get away with the robberies.

Toby will not reconcile with his wife. He’ll remain estranged with his boys. Hamilton will visit Toby after ‘it’s all over’ to try to confirm Toby was part of the robberies.

All this happened. Yet, expecting them to happen didn’t detract from the movie. This film was about relationships and the nuances their existences create, and how relationships continue to live and drive behavior even after some of those involved in the relationships are dead.

The movie, while about Texans Rangers and bank robbers, law and society, men and their women, and brothers and their family, is ultimately about love and betrayal. The largest betrayal is their belief in the land and the country, and how their expectations of what to believe betrayed them.

When the movie ended, after Toby and Hamilton have their conversation, and Toby invites Hamilton to come by and finish it, my wife commented, “That was an odd ending.”

“No, it wasn’t.” It was exactly about the title to me. Although the line, “Hell or High Water,” is used in reference to getting some money to a bank on Friday regardless of hell or high water, it’s clearer to me that the title is about relationships and life.

They are the hell or high water that’s endured.