No Country for Old Men 2007
It took me a long time to get around to watching this. I had heard that it was very violent, very dark, and had a very unsatisfying ending. But it also won a lot of Oscars, so when I got my new Blu-ray DVD player, this was the first disk I rented.
In spite of the glowing reviews, No Country for Old Men has some big flaws. And despite people who were very frustrated with certain elements, mainly the ending, this is still a very good movie. From the very beginning, the movie keeps you on the edge of your seat. Very early on the Coens show that anyone can be killed at any time for no particular reason. It has a certain level of terrorism paranoia to it because of that. Javiar Bardem plays a methodical but very disturbed . . . hit man? gangster? cleaner? mass murderer? You’re not sure, but you know he doesn’t mind killing people. Josh Brolin plays the classic citizen of Texas who, given an opportunity to make the score of a lifetime, can’t lay off even knowing that his life will be at stake. He is a rugged individual, confident, but playing out of his level against Bardem’s evil incarnate. Tommy Lee Jones is a third point to the triangle, a worn Texas lawman following both of the others, hoping to stop them before it is too late. In the DVD extras, Jones says that even though he has played this role many times before and wanted to avoid being typecast, he couldn’t turn down such a great chance. Likewise, the Coens couldn’t help but choose Tommy Lee Jones for a role so tailor made.
So the cast is very good, the Coens can set a mood like nobody’s business, and the plot stays good for most of the movie, but it does start to unravel. By the ending it feels like the Coens couldn’t decide which way to go with the movie and so it just ends. But the rest of the movie is so well made and so intensely compelling that I still have to give it high marks. It is very violent, almost to the point of being a horror movie and while they show you plenty of gore, they leave even more violence off screen, but you know it happened just the same. The body count in Fargo was very high, and in this movie it is even higher. Fargo had a good ending. No Country for Old Men is every bit as good, only without a good ending. A-
Written: 26 Nov 2008
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital