Why No Country For Old Men Isn't A Great Film

I think [b] Old Country [/b] was very good; maybe not great, but damn good.

But I'm a bit confused by your note [em] "Frenchy kills two of the most important people. But we don't see him do it." [/em]

The drug deal was between Mexicans and Americans. The Americans [aka Stephen Root] send "Frenchy" [aka Javier Bardem].

The Mexicans are on a different track (and probably pissed off that Brolin killed their dog). After the Mexicans ask his girlfriend's Mom where she's going, they go to the motel and they kill Brolin. It's them getting away in the pick-up truck as Tommy Lee Jones is driving up.

As for Brolin's girl getting whacked, I didn't want to see it. Did you?

So you're upset that the filmmakers stayed true to the author's vision? You were hoping it would have more of a "Die Hard" ending? Something a little more formulaic? Can't say I agree with that. btw, Coen Brothers is spelled wrong.

i thought it was very very good. the acting some of the best of 2007. but it was a bit anti-climatic. there was no explanation as to how bardem got to brolin and what the exhange between them was. i thought that was what the film was leading up to. as for the killing of his wife, no problem not seeing that. we just spent such an intense and long time with brolin that i think that the audience deserved to see how he died.
i'm no old man, give to me straight!

I see you insist on being an idiot, Tony.

Not only did you confuse a spanish actor with being french, but you misspelled the name "Coen." Perhaps a wee bit of research for that which you forgot might have made you look less a moron. (For the record, I always spell nationalist nouns in lower-case.)

The balance of the film is done very well. The opening carnage is not witnessed, nor is that at the end. What the film is about is chance.

I imagine that you never guessed that "The Good The Bad and The ugly" was about greed, either.

Now, you have a week before you go on to screwing up the LA Times blog, so you had best stop wasting time watching movies and get back to erasing your embarrassing comments as well as those of folk calling you out on previous LAist blogs.

Pierce is right. (Other than his spelling of Coen).

In the hour or so that I spent sorting through my feelings on the film (which, like Tony, I was impressed with on numerous levels), feeling more and more strongly that the Coens had really dropped the ball here, I knew also that there would be scores of counter-minded film freaks out there who would assert that the structural collapse of the film's last third was entirely deliberate, and would provide links to online dissertations that would explain precisely why what only appears to be a badly botched narrative arc is in fact fully supportive of the Coens' vision.

I don't want to hear it. If it has to be explained in some painstaking, academic deconstruction, I'm not interested. Movies, like all art, work on an intuitive level or they don't work. It either hits the gut or it misses by a mile. Sheriff Bell was far too peripheral a character for the movie's first two acts for it's last act to be drawn from his personal reflections.

No Country for Old Men is a wreck on the highway, albeit a wreck of a beautifully made vehicle.

Well, I am pretty dumb. There's no getting around that.

But being an idiot is the new Hollywood 'Cool'!

In all seriousness, the Coen brothers are perhaps some of the best filmmakers of all time, being extremely versatile and cohesive in their storytelling.

The ending was not a 'cop-out', and I believe the filmmakers have an intention in doing what they do in their films.

I left the theater wanting to watch it again and dissecting it. I'm glad it was a movie that wasn't spoonfed which a lot of movies do now.

This is the problem with Blogging in general. Firstly you need an editor so embarrassing mistakes like misspelling the name of the filmmakers (which by the way is about the easiest fact to find on the subject, which embodies your clear lack of attention to detail). Errors like that are understandable but compounded with the fact that you didn't even get major plot points (the mexicans killed Llewelyn not Anton) and then write about it as if it was the movies fault makes your critique basically useless.

You can believe or say things are a cop out when you understand them, but the first 5 minutes of the film (the montage of West, Texas) which Tommy Lee Jones narrates over is also the last five minutes of the film, clearly this part of the film escaped both the reviewer and hyperspace who claims that Tommy Lee Jones was too "peripheral when in actuality the movie is about him. The TITLE OF THE FILM directly refers not only to what the film is about, but the underlying focus. Your idea of wussing out is them not sticking to the filmic conventions you expect, which shows your limited range of enjoyment of more challenging work.

Even if you didn't see this upon your first viewing those facts are there and if you still don't like it, at least it's for reasons pertaining to guts and not a lack of understanding.

For me, it isn't an issue of spelling out the details or wrapping events up tidily. Those are not qualities that I value in movies at all. In fact, I tend to resist movies that are too explicit in their purpose, maybe even to a fault sometimes. I am, however, fairly adamant about aesthetic shape and thematic follow-through, and I do feel strongly that any work of art should have an immediate emotional impact (i.e., hitting the gut). Even if that reaction can be enriched and given more detail after the fact through discussion with friends, external reading, whatever, the success of the work should never be dependent upon those post-mortems.

For about 90 minutes, No Country for Old Men asserted itself as an elegant, minimalist thriller, almost entirely consumed with the mechanics of the Chigurh-Moss cat & mouse, albeit enlivened with some excellent performances. Then, without any apparent effort to give those chapters any closure, the film abruptly became a philosophical portrait of a man's final days in law enforcement. The transition was simply not graceful, and I'm open to the idea that the abruptness of the change is somehow in service of the movie's themes, but I'm skeptical that I'd be persuaded. I'm sorry, but the title of the film and the one minute voice-over from Sheriff Bell in the opening scene do not build a sufficient foundation for the film's last scenes to be devoted entirely to his ennui, nor do they make the movie "about him."

Allow me to highly recommend Cristian Mungiu's film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which will be coming out shortly. Here's a movie that does not spell anything out, nor does it tidy up after itself. Several questions remain unanswered by the movie's end, but never once does it lose sight of its themes. For my money, it's the best film of the year. As much as there is to love about No Country (and there's a lot), a man has to call it like he sees it.

All for now. I'm off to catch a "metaphorically-heavy Disney film." I'm not quite sure what that is, but I have it on good authority that they exist, and I'm all kinds of intrigued.

Uh, I didn't like it either. It was slow at times and I was really bummed that Llewelyn dies, because he did such a good job evading "Sugar" for quite some time. I know that the book was written that way, and it would be a huge faux pas for the Coen brothers to change that but that's the movie I want to see. Westerns are typically feel good shoot em ups, and I would like more of the same. Sorry.

Additionally, to anyone who thinks they know what happen at the end, how can you be so sure? How do you know for certain it's arty and confusing? Maybe YOU ARE WRONG, but we can never know for sure since there's not more evidence from just the movie itself to prove it.

Finally, I do NOT think this movie is really about chance. When Llewelyn's lady refuses to take a chance on her life, I think it's pretty obvious that if Anton wants to kill someone he does, and later if an old man wants to be a shitty driver and hit Anton, he will. Shit happens is a much better summary of this movie, since it shows us that it doesn't matter if you're good or bad or ugly, you can die.

You say culture is improved when artists are held to a higher standard, then you say you worked to pay for the ticket and shouldn't have to work to enjoy the film. So, following that logic, artists should be held to a higher standard, as long as that standard produces work that is really easy for you to digest. That's your standard for art? Really? I mean, really? You suggest that the Coen's film takes the "easy way out" -- but you're the one who is also saying that the narrative is "too much work for me."

Dude, the Coen brothers make *art* movies, they have always been intellectual and wonderfully pretentious in their approach to filmmaking. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This one is towards the top of their game. You disagree, fine, you wanted Rambo and you got Ordet. Either it's not your cup of tea or you just didn't get it, or maybe a little bit of both. Your opinion is fine, it's yours. But your analysis, "critic", is flat out wack.

from my friend.

First off, how can anyone take this review seriously when one uses phrases like "mofo". Secondly, the ending of the movie is not a cop out. If you MUST KNOW how the people were killed to understand the point of the movie, then maybe Hitman is more to your liking.
The only thing lazy is your half-assed review that doesn't even deserve to be called a critique. If you took even a minute to think about the point of the film, then maybe you wouldn't be so caught up on how the "mofo" killed "anti-hero" (congratulations on using a term that makes you seem intelligent). The Coen brothers were attempting to evoke thoughts on its themes of fate and acceptance. But God forbid there be a movie that makes you think. And God also forbid a movie sweep the Oscars for having great acting and good direction. And since it seems so difficult for you to grasp heavy concepts, I am being sarcastic. I wonder if you even realize how ignorant you sound, basically saying, "yeah the movies great, but I don't get the ending, so it shouldn't win an Oscar". And I wasn't a big Sopranos fan, but I did see the last episode, and the comparison is a very weak one. Poor example. But again, if you delved deeper you would realize there are distinct differences between the two. The Sopranos' ending was meant to be sensational, to make the audience wonder if there was going to be a hit or not, leaving them on a cliffhanger. Obviously, its understanding why fans would be upset; they want closure, they want resolution. "Old Country", however, ends the way it does for a very different reason. It wants to make the audience think. Yes, you should be surprised that it ended, you should be confused, and then, as an intelligent movie goer, you should think about why it did, how it fits into the rest of the film. And I'm not sure how many movies you have seen, but they don't always have to be completely focused on the plot. In a lot of great movies, the plot comes secondary to the themes the story is trying to convey. I would argue this is one of those stories, and the great thing about it is that the plot is so great, even though it is secondary, it still captivates the audience. But, the Coen Brothers were aiming for something more than just a good story in this film. The ending was perfect for what the movie was going for. You are goddamn right you can't blame the author, because he wrote a hell of a book, and I applaud the Coen Brothers for staying true to his vision by not watering it down for the masses. If that vision gets lost on one useless blogger, well thats what Transformers if for.

Congrats on your new position at the LA Times. Looks like you'll be a great fit at a rag that disregards the artists that keep the film industry great.

tony you are wrong. this is not a cool alternative opinion, this is the wrong answer.

Enjoying No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Diving Bell and the Butterfly, these aren't so much films as intelligence tests. and by intelligence i mean taste.

Your defense of the film revealed you missed major plot points but you said it better yourself,

"French, Spanish, whatever. I'm just a guy sitting in a theater, if you can't explain it in a way that I understand, that's not my fault, award-winning filmakers, its yours."

a. LOL!
b. duh.