Ben Masters grew up in the Texas Panhandle. So, it’s a little poetic that a kid from the driest corner of the state has become the person asking all of us to look harder at what flows beneath our feet. His new film, “Deep in the Heart 2: Texas Rivers,” is a sequel to his 2022 wildlife breakout, but calling it a follow-up undersells it.
The first film wandered the whole Texas menagerie. This one narrows its gaze to the rapids that course through it. As native narrator Ethan Hawke tells us in the opening minutes, “Texas is a land shaped by water.”
A love letter to a river we keep insulting
Masters admits the Trinity has an image problem. Ask most Dallasites about the river cutting through their city and you’ll get a wrinkled nose.
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“The Trinity is often kind of looked at as a dirty river, but it’s a wonderful, vibrant river ecosystem — a badass ecosystem, really,” Masters says.
He put in the boot time to back it up — filming waters just east of Dallas, chasing alligators downstream and trapping through the Great Trinity Forest. It’s one of the largest urban forests in the country, hiding in plain sight behind a skyline…