No Country for Old Men (review)
A Simple Plan
Here’s the thing about Joel and Ethan Coen: they can make anything, absolutely anything, intensely profound and deeply weird -- and weirdly deep -- and cruelly magnificent all at the same time. Skip back past their recent fluff -- not that Intolerable Cruelty and especially O Brother, Where Art Thou? are not as sublime as fluff gets -- and recall how Fargo and Miller’s Crossing and Blood Simple simply Blew. Your. Mind. with the unfathomable depths of their indifferent visual beauty and the wide-open expanses of their psychological intuition. Recall how it felt to walk right along a knife edge of understated terror and unexpected humor and modern noir nonchalance.
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The Coens are a force of nature, and thank god for them, for reminding us of the spellbinding awesomeness of film to fill you up and knock you down and wrap up the immeasurable strangeness of life in neat, messy packages. Every single one of their movies is the kind of movie that made you fall in love with movies, and each of their films can be defined through the one character at its center who is a force of nature him- or herself. (The Coens pull this off in such a way that you’d think that must be the definition of any movie.) And no Coen human low-pressure system yet has been anything like the nightmare of centered psychosis that is Javier Bardem’s (The Sea Inside, Collateral) Anton Chigurh.
He’s a killer -- a hired killer, maybe, or just a madly dedicated one. He stalks into Coens’ big empty flat vastness of West Texas on a mission: to retrieve the suitcase full of money -- about $2 million’s worth -- from whoever spirited it away from the desert drug deal that went bad. He’s a machine, as cold and calculating as the Terminator but worse: flickers of sympathy or humanity or something decent tease us. Or, no: not flickers of humanity but of a commitment to his own heartless set of rules, to a capriciousness that is its own weird kind of honor. He is perfectly happy to decide who will live and who will die by his hand on the toss of a coin. Chigurh is the embodiment of the randomness of violence, the unpredictability of the universe in dealing out death, and he haunts this desolate landscape like an malevolent shade.
It’s a landscape not just physical -- the Coens’ long, silent takes of cold wind blowing through desert sagebrush are like something out of a forgotten Andrew Wyeth painting -- but emotional, too, in an reserved male way. The man Chigurh is after is Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin: American Gangster, Grindhouse: Planet Terror), not the brightest bulb but far from the dimmest, too: he can’t resist the lure of all that money, which he stumbled across purely by accident, but neither can he resist the call of his conscience to do something he should have done before he left the scene of the crime (his own and others’), which is what allows Chigurh to pick up his tail. So now Moss is on the run, trying to draw Chigurh away from his wife (Kelly Macdonald: Nanny McPhee, Finding Neverland); two steps behind is county sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones: A Prairie Home Companion, Man of the House), who’s appalled by all the death and destruction he’s seeing in the wake of whomever it is he’s chasing.
It’s all so simple, really: a simple story simply told. It’s in the how that the Coens show their mastery as perhaps the finest pure storytellers working in film today. Give this same script to, oh, John McTiernan or Edgar Wright, and you’d get a stylish action movie out of it. In the hands of the Coens, it is a literary masterpiece about the flips sides of perseverance, and about a cultural shift that’s barely noticed until it’s past. The year is 1980, at the beginning of the “war on drugs,” when the dealers and the smugglers started getting desperate and even more dangerous, and saw no reason not to raise the stakes as high as they could go: Chigurh is their weapon. And while he doesn’t know it as the film opens, Bell is the old man this country is no longer for -- we meet him through a stunningly effective voiceover at the beginning of the movie in which he shakes his head in wonder at the “old-timer” sheriffs of Texas who refuse to even carry a gun, but he is already as obsolete, temperamentally if not strategically, as those relics from a era lost and never to be refound.
If Bardem is the whirlwind here, Jones is the still eye of the storm, the calm axis around which horrors eddy and the world changes -- this is Jones’s finest performance ever as he, the actor, tetters along a tightrope the character doesn’t even know he’s walking. But all the most riveting, most tense moments in No Country for Old Men are like that: quiet, uncomplicated, but fraught with dangers sensed and unsensed.
(Technorati tags: No Country for Old Men, Coen Brothers, Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin)
viewed at a private screening with an audience of criticsrated R for strong graphic violence and some language
official site | IMDB
comments
posted by Nathan (November 15, 2007 6:20 PM)
Well, I'm sure it helps when your starting point is a literary masterpiece in the first place. McCarthy originally conceived of No Country as a screenplay before he made a novel of it, which may be why it has apparently translated to film so well (I haven't seen it yet.) No Country as a novel might be McCarthy's weakest effort to date, but a weak effort from McCarthy is better than anything else out there. Thank god the Coens got a hold of it and not someone else.
When I first heard the movie was being made, I doubted they could successfully portray the menace of Chigurh, but it looks like Bardem has done something really special.
posted by MaryAnn (November 16, 2007 7:45 AM)
A good script is always an excellent place to start, of course, but many bad films have been made from great source material. See *Love in the Time of Cholera* the film for a prime example.
posted by E (November 16, 2007 2:31 PM)
I don't even want to read the rest of the review after the first few lines. As long as its awesome, I don't want to spoil it anymore for myself. I hope that's not a terrible fact to a film reviewer, but this is one of maybe two films per year where I isolate myself from most information and hope to god it's as good as I want it to be.
posted by MaryAnn (November 16, 2007 7:17 PM)
That's not terrible at all. I try to make my reviews as interesting to those who've already seen a film as it hopefully is to those trying to decide whether to see something, so come back after you see this one.
posted by Moe (November 21, 2007 11:02 PM)
Tommy Lee Jones gives his speech at the table and then the credits come up. Everybody in the audience looks at each other and quietly shuffles to the exists. I just sat there and screamed in my head, "That's it?!?! Where's the ending?"
No conflict resolution between the protagonist and antagonist, questions marks everywhere and car crash that served no purpose. The scenes without the killer was like a suction void that drained the movie of all tension/conflict/interest and i couldn't wait until the film went back to him.
I hate it when movies don't have endings.
I'd give it a 5/10 but probably around 8/10 if it had a proper conclusion.
posted by The Party Crasher (November 22, 2007 5:23 AM)
Here I am again.
Here I am to announce the fact that Josh Brolin has shot a dog...again. Two consecutive films in a row, Josh Brolin shoots a dog. Two brilliantly made films (No Country for Old Men and American Gangster). Both containing a scene where Brolin shoots a dog.
My predictions for Oscar:
Best film category:
1)No Country for Old Men
2)American Gangster
Best supporting actor:
1) Josh Brolin
2) Dog in No Country for Old Men
3) Dog in American Gangster
posted by JT (November 22, 2007 12:48 PM)
I think the car crash showed that Chigurh, who seemed to be invincible for most of the movie, was as vulnerable as everyone else.
The movie was open-ended, but TLJ's words at the end pretty much say to me that he has accepted his fate and he feels too old to continue chasing this killer. One final showdown doesn't need to be shown.
posted by Moe (November 22, 2007 1:05 PM)
The aftermath of that late night street shootout showed Chigurh was human. So what was the point of the car crash?
Who hired Chigurh? Who were those two "managerial" men?
Was he in that abandoned crime scene in that motel?
Did he just run out the window? That doesn't seem like him.
The movie should've ended with TLJ and Chigurh at the motel. No matter what happened, that would've been the proper conclusion. Or, even better, have his final speech as a voice over on his way over to the motel where Chigurh was resting and fade out as he enters. Let the audience decide that way.
That would've been not only an ending, but a great one.
The way they left it, makes TLJ's character seem cowardly.
What the sulty old sherrif is too scared to hunt down the psychotic new comers? Didn't he state at the very beginning that he'd be okay with dying on the job?
God, i really hated that ending.
I don't care if the Coens followed the book's ending to a T, it's just wrong to leave the audience that unfulfilled.
posted by Nathan (November 23, 2007 12:06 AM)
the car crash -- earlier in the film Chigurh tells the gas station attendant not to mix the lucky coin in with his other coins because then it would just be another coin. then he turns to the man and says, "Which it is." Chigurh says more than once that he got here the same way the coin did... he is a lucky coin in that he is the "ultimate badass" and seems to be the arbiter of others' fates, but he is also just another coin in that he is subject to chance as much as anyone else. the random crash makes this clear.
i thought it was interesting that, just like Moss, Chigurh is forced to purchase a piece of clothing from a stranger with bloody money. in any case i think the image of a battered Chigurh shambling down a sunny, Odessa, Tx street is as perfect an image of evil as i might ever see in a film.
Sheriff Bell is renouncing the world because this world has become (drumroll) No Country For Old Men. and maybe he realizes that this world has always been that way. there will be no killing of Chigurh because Chigurh in many ways is the face of the world itself -- violent and random even if it seems at times to follow some kind of untethered logic. if a man as resourceful and full of classic, western values such as Moss is snuffed out unceremoniously off-screen, what chance does an old sheriff have?
the only thing we can do in that kind of a world is to carry the fire, no matter how small, into all that darkness, like in the dream. Bell's way of doing this is to retire, settle down, live out his life, and tell his story.
but anyway, if you didn't like NCFOM, i saw the trailer for the new Rambo movie and i'd be willing to bet he kills the bad guys in the end following all the usual narrative conventions that people like so much; so you might want to check that out.
posted by MaryAnn (November 23, 2007 3:20 PM)
What Nathan said.
Cowardly? It's just the opposite. It's Bell bravely recognizing that the world has passed him by and that he is not prepared to face it in any way that fits into his self-image of himself as a lawman. His whole opening monologue becomes ironic in retrospect. Not his stated willingness to die on the job (though, I suppose, an argument could be made about self-delusion, that he believed he could be satisfied die on the job only when he was in control enough to think, perhaps unconsciously, that that wouldn't happen). But his respectful but just slightly condescending portrait of those old geezers who preceded him, and whom he can see are on the way out. Now Bell is the one on the way out.
What difference would it make who hired Chigurh? Isn't it enough to assume that it was someone who had a stake in that drug deal that went bad just before the film opens? How would knowing the identity and precise motive of Chigurh's employer change anything?
posted by Moe (November 23, 2007 8:19 PM)
In the time that it took to film and show that pointless car crash, a few expositional words about his motive would've helped the movie.
Remember Vincent from Collateral? Remember how well it was portrayed what his victims had done?
"How do i know, you know? They all got that witness for the prosecution look to me. Probably some major federal indictment of somebody who majorly doesn't wanna get indicted."
A few sentences like that could only have made the movie better.
And to leave the most compelling character of the entire with so many question marks around him was just not smart.
Believe me MaryAnne, if you only could've seen the disappointment of the audience that i saw it with when the credits came up, you'd see what i mean.
posted by reed (November 24, 2007 12:55 AM)
The film peters out two thirds of the way through and it's a rip off from there onwards. The film makes you care about Bolin, the Vietnam vet character and then it doesn't even pay off where it counts. A show down between a resourceful man and an insatiable killer who looks and acts like Lurch but who has ghost like supernatural power to carry out evil, was needed. But the movie didn't deliver. The last quarter or so of the film rambled on without much of a story left to tell. What a disappointment in its deficiency to remain connected to the story of a strong-willed, tough-minded, resourceful and determined man to make his stand against evil. The film couldn't even be bothered with showing how a man who decided to protect his wife and take on a malevolent grotesque monster went down fighting. His stand was the purpose and heart of the story and what made the film worth watching and redeeming. All this emphasis given to an almost supernatural man possessed of evil undermined the credibility of the film. As the film went on and on, its emphasis on the violent acts of a reprehensible character and the inability to retaliate effectively against him or to outwit him because he is just unstoppable and too powerful made the story repulsive. Eventually the film's story became so futile and repelling it lost it compass as it meandered and sputtered to an inconclusive and pointless ending, but by then who cared anymore?
posted by Alex Knapp (November 24, 2007 3:44 PM)
I completely agree. Even if Llewellyn had LOST, and the killer had won, the showdown would have redeemed the movie.
I was horribly let down by the ending. I don't need the good guys to win all the time. I don't need there to be a happy ending. I DO, however, need there to be a MEANINGFUL ending. An ending that gives the film a thematic capstone.
Too many potentially great movies are ruined by their endings. This is doubly disappointing because the Coen Brothers have brought us some amazing, amazing endings that take their films to new heights.
posted by MaryAnn (November 24, 2007 11:15 PM)
But the crash was NOT pointless! It shows that Chigurh is NOT the "supernatural" being the most recent commenters seem to believe he is -- that he is subject to the same random chance that we all are. What is supernatural about him, anyway?
Just because the thematic capstone isn't one you like doesn't mean there isn't one there.
posted by Moe (November 25, 2007 10:32 AM)
"But the crash was NOT pointless! It shows that Chigurh is NOT the "supernatural" being the most recent commenters seem to believe he is -- that he is subject to the same random chance that we all are. What is supernatural about him, anyway?"
Don't you think his gunfight injuries with Josh Brolin did that already?
posted by MaryAnn (November 25, 2007 6:39 PM)
No, I don't. Chigurh believed himself above the vagaries of random chance, but getting shot in a gunfight doesn't seem to negate that. But that car crash, outta nowhere... whew. It's as shocking to us as it is to him... and that's the point. It HAD to come out of nowhere for us to feel something of the shock he feels.
posted by JDR (November 25, 2007 11:14 PM)
Thank you for the best review/discussion I've read of the film, yet. I just saw it a few hours ago, and I knew I'd be reading some review sites this evening to try to get a better understanding of the message (especially after the ending - which made the majority of the audience groan in obvious disappointment when the lights came up).
Tommy Lee Jones' performance is better and more haunting the more I think about it. At first I was bothered that his character really had nothing to do with the main plot line. However, the movie's title is all about him and his situation - his decision to quit and his lack of involvement and waning interest in his job, and his growing disgust and frustration with how he perceives the world changing (but as another character pointed out, man's inhumanity towards man is nothing new). The fact that he doesn't have any true involvement or effect on the events that unfold is clearly on purpose.
This is not a straight-ahead, plot-drive action flick that ties up neatly at the end. Mistaking it for one is what's causing people frustration with the movie, I think. I've read quite a few reviews that said that the dream retelling at the end of the movie was just "tacked on to add some meaning." No, the theme is constant throughout with Jones' character and it is the whole point of the movie (and McCarty's book) - otherwise they could have just titled it "Some Stuff that Went Down in West Texas."
I like that Llewelyn was resourceful and clever - but not enough in the end to cheat his fate. I like the car crash, which proved that the one person seemingly in control of things throughout the film, wasn't completely. Everything was masterfully crafted - this is a great piece of filmmaking in its own right and thought provoking, despite what some people are saying.
posted by MaryAnn (November 26, 2007 3:19 PM)
I think that says more about those critics than it says about the movie. Who on earth could take issue with "meaning" or with a film being "meaningful"?
posted by Johnny (November 27, 2007 8:26 PM)
I dunno what Jones was talking about in the end, I was waiting for a cowboy ending, maybe they'll have a sequel with more guns. j/k
I was sitting in a theater full of old people. I meen I was the only young guy.They most of saw Tommy lee Jones was in it and figured it would be a typical western. I'm not saying I'm Mr.cool for being the youngest there.
However Given the bad guy was so creepy, I got the jumps everytime. You know a bad thing was going to happen , but when... that had me on the edge. I can't help be a twitcher in the seats. It's embarrassing, I did manage to stand from my seat before everyone else. They were all like "huh is it over?". And i walked out knowing at least i'm not that bad(the bad guy). I'd didn't really get TLJ's character I found it nerve racking. He was just taking things slow. Mean while hes falling behind the whole case.Cowardly, no, if he was, he wouldn't of been a cop. So I didn't listen to that story I was to dazzled by the time, settings and violence.
posted by MaryAnn (November 27, 2007 11:43 PM)
Well, that's their problem, isn't is? Since when is he known for being in "typical Westerns"?
posted by Johnny (November 28, 2007 12:08 AM)
Well the joke is, Tommy lee Jones shows up to the set with his Cowboy hat and cop Attitude. No need for the studio to buy him the uniform, he already owns one. Thats where I was getting at. But I didn't event care about the crowd and what they thought.But they did take notice to most of his performance.Like the scene where he describes those crimes in the paper, it was bitter and funny. Where I liked the whole cat and mouse thing more between the killer and Josh Brolin.
posted by JT (November 28, 2007 1:48 AM)
I was sitting in a theater full of old people. I meen I was the only young guy
I had the same experience. I've never seen so many old women (Cormac McCarthy fangirls?) in a theater at one time. It was like bingo night at a church. But they were really quiet even when the accents and dialogue were difficult to grasp. The last movie I went to that was filled with old people was Matchstick Men and people kept asking others what the characters on the screen were saying. It was a nightmare.
posted by MBI (November 28, 2007 10:08 AM)
The youngest person in my viewing was my 17-year-old little brother, who I made go with me. I also made him watch Blue Velvet, Elephant and Barton Fink when he was younger. I do so much for that kid, I swear.
Best movie of the year? Hell fucking yeah.
posted by Nathan (November 28, 2007 5:26 PM)
yeah, there are a lot of old-lady, Cormac McCarthy fangirls... they really enjoy the violence, despair, and Gnostic angst.
posted by MaryAnn (November 28, 2007 6:21 PM)
Nope, sorry, that doesn't cut it. Anyone who's clued in enough to behind-the-scenes Hollywood to know that knows that TLJ hardly even does "typical Westerns."
posted by Kevin (November 28, 2007 11:53 PM)
I have never posted a blog before, if that's what I'm doing now. I appreciate all the insights, to help me understand what I believe is one of the most well-crafted films I have ever seen.
I, too, did not get the point of the ending at first and groaned with most of the audience. After thinking more about it, I got that the Chigurh character was not just an evil man, he was the embodiment, a vehicle of Evil itself. I believe that is what Harrelson's character was trying to get across to Brolin in the hospital when he said, "You don't understand." It makes sense that Anton Chigurh goes on, as a metaphor for the persistence of Evil that Sheriff Bell so often laments.
posted by Johnny (November 29, 2007 12:48 AM)
I can believe the elders didn't come to see T-Jones. I was guessing. First thing that came to mind was Maybe it was Tlj , maybe. And when I thought about it, yes your right he didn't do alot of westerns. If all the senors came there because of the writer , well I believe that, if I knew the writer. Which I didn't, and now I do, hell maybe I'll read the book, or something else by the writer. I'm game for more of the content the film featured.
posted by cole (November 30, 2007 1:40 AM)
i think that the sheriff took his friends advice. When he asked the old timer if the man that shot you was released whould you go after him, and the old timer said no because while you are trying to get revenge our justice more of your life is flying out the window. I think to that the sheriff had seen enough evil for his life time.
posted by b (December 6, 2007 10:30 AM)
It only makes sense that a lot of people would be disappointed by the last third of this movie. In a way it speaks to how damn excellent the set-up was. You really want some kind of showdown, regardless of the exact outcome. That none of the three primary characters fully confront one another is an eschewal of convention that can't help but frustrate on some level.
I loved the movie, of course. But the book pads out things a little better, thematically. It's more easily understood that the Sheriff's pontifications are the center of gravity in the story, and you get more of them, more insight into where his character is coming from. Not that the Coens omit anything vital.
It also gives you a little more insight into who Chigurh is and what happens to the money itself. I'm not sure why the Coens left that out of the movie, as it would've appeased the desire for more resolution; and, it IS in the book. And it's an interesting resolution.
Overall, the book, while powerful and 100% worth reading, is not McCarthy's most mind-blowing -- it's very spare, almost Hemingway-esque (but better), and the movie is an at times almost exhaustingly faithful adaptation. So in seeing the movie you really aren't missing out on a ton. But the book does give you some insight into a few puzzling aspects and scenes in the movie, and spins others in a slightly different way. E.g. in the book, the final dialogue between Chigurh and Moss' wife plays out differently, with different implications. There's more discussion between them than what's in the movie, and Moss' wife finally calls the coin toss.
What impressed me in reading the book after seeing the movie was that on the rare occasions the Coens flat-out added something of their own, it was brilliant, but also aesthetically well-matched enough that I was surprised it wasn't also a part of the book. E.g. that amazing sequence in which the pitbull chases Brolin into and through the river? Purely the Coens.
On the otherhand the melancholy of the book is deeper and better balanced. You get into the Sheriff's head more, especially towards the end. There's a little more personal context. It's not exactly uplifting stuff, but definitely powerful, and it gives you a hell of a lot to think about.
posted by Scott P. (December 7, 2007 12:49 AM)
Excellent comment by reed-- "What a disappointment in its deficiency to remain connected to the story of a strong-willed, tough-minded, resourceful and determined man to make his stand against evil. The film couldn't even be bothered with showing how a man who decided to protect his wife and take on a malevolent grotesque monster went down fighting. His stand was the purpose and heart of the story and what made the film worth watching and redeeming."
While I enjoyed the movie & didn't mind the ending, I didn't like how the Coens neglected to show us how Moss (the movie's underdog-hero) died. He shared a clever give & take with the chick by the pool & then we don't even see a clear shot of him lying dead in the motel room after the Mexicans showed up.
I don't buy the Tommy Lee Jones character as being a hero at all. He avoided meeting with the DEA agents out of laziness or maybe he simply didn't care about solving the case. Then when he figured out that Chigurh would waltz right into the crime scene at the El Paso motel in order to find the money, why wouldn't he call the local police to meet him there in order to catch the psychopath on the loose???
posted by MaryAnn (December 7, 2007 6:50 PM)
Man, that dog was intensely scary...
Maybe that's the point. Maybe there are no heroes here at all.
What I love about the Coens is how they refuse -- almost always but particularly here -- to adhere to cinematic convention. Who says there *must* be a protagonist who's "heroic"?
posted by Corey (December 8, 2007 11:25 PM)
At the conclusion of this film, I wish I had been shot in the head with Chigurh's air gun. Excuse me for enjoying films as entertainment, but when I go to the movies I don't want my brain to hurt from all that thinking. Tommy Lee Jones was definitely great in this movie. However, this movie isn't nearly as flawless a film as Volcano. My two suggestions are: #1 Volcano could have used more western shootouts. #2 No Country For Old Men could have used more lava.
posted by MaryAnn (December 9, 2007 4:34 PM)
Your brain hurts from *thinking*?! You should see a doctor or something. That's like saying your lungs hurt from breathing --it shouldn't be.
posted by Byron Huskey (January 3, 2008 5:45 AM)
A bit late to the party, but I just saw this last night with a couple friends. Pretty much adored movie, and we thought it was brilliant, except for...
Yes, the ending (although Moss' death was also very underwhelming, I was able to accept it as an artistic choice).
It left all four of us so... unsatisfied, perhaps for different reasons. For myself and two of my friends, it was not that there was no "showdown". We liked the car crash. I actually predicted the crash itself as soon as I saw that light turn green, but that's okay, it still was shocking to see it *actually* come to be.
We liked the monologue about the dream. But the ending was still so unsatisfying. I didn't want a happy ending, or some other cliche. I'm okay with leaving things unanswered or vague. But it wasn't an ending. The movie stopped. It didn't end. Perhaps, as had been suggested, the movie should have ended with the monologue over a montage of shots leading up to the sheriff coming back to the hotel. Perhaps not.
I'm sure years from now the movie's ending will be studied by film students in Coen Brother study classes (I've been in one before, it was a great class) and people will have a hundred ways of interpreting it; many of their movies are like that. Still, an ending shouldn't have such a universal head-scratch. Doesn't have to be dumbed down. My friends and I aren't stupid, we like reading into things. But really, the movie plain old stopped. This was actually the second movie in a row I've seen with a weak "ending" (I Am Legend by the other. But that movie petered out as soon as the woman and her son entered, and that was more of a script failing than a misguided artistic choice). Still, the rest of the movie was exquisite. It's the one real flaw of this otherwise gem of a film.
posted by matt (January 8, 2008 6:01 PM)
No conflict resolution between the protagonist and antagonist, questions marks everywhere and car crash that served no purpose. The scenes without the killer was like a suction void that drained the movie of all tension/conflict/interest and i couldn't wait until the film went back to him.
You should rend finding nemo. I think you'd enjoy it.
But really, the movie plain old stopped.
Yes it did. That it wasn't what you thought i would be doesn't mean it didn't have an ending. The story line was over. The movie started with the sheriff's words and ended with the sheriff's words. In the beginning he discussed the old timers, in the end he was the old timer.
Needless to say, I thought the movie was brilliant, flawless, and the best I've seen in a long time. I didn't want to leave the theatre. Bravo.
posted by E R (January 18, 2008 8:24 PM)
Howdy,
In Reply to:
"I don't buy the Tommy Lee Jones character as being a hero at all. He avoided meeting with the DEA agents out of laziness or maybe he simply didn't care about solving the case. Then when he figured out that Chigurh would waltz right into the crime scene at the El Paso motel in order to find the money, why wouldn't he call the local police to meet him there in order to catch the psychopath on the loose???
---
The Sheriff is and ol' and wise and wise dog....
he isnt wastin' time with the Feds, and patiently sits and watches...knowing one of em is a ProKiller, the other, a NamVet ProKiller....
He thinks ahead how these pieces are moving, really fast, making their moves...
Calling the cavalry, would just get more police killed against these two gunslingers...
It is in Texas, boys...
Another cool part of the movie is where all 3 characters connect:
They all drink from the same milk.
Is that part in the book ?
posted by Signal30 (January 18, 2008 9:22 PM)
That's sorta neat about the milk... I forgot that Moss was in the equation.
I think it's important when approaching the film to remember that it's not Moss' story, but the Sheriff's. In a meta-filmmaking way, the betrayal of narrative expectations mirrors the sheriff's increasing bewilderment that no one's playing by the rules anymore.
And then, the realization that they never really did and that he was a sucker for thinking so.
Personally, I didn't have a problem with Moss' offscreen death. It sort of implied that in the scheme of things, his death was as irrelevant to the proceedings as that of the hotel clerk, the floozie by the pool or any other bystander that happened to get into Chugarh's way.
Dead is dead, doesn't matter how you got there.
Although I'll cop that when the reveal came, a line from Yeats' "The Second Coming" flashed through my mind: "Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold..."
But that was in response to the narrative turn, I momentarily thought that the film had gone off of the rails. But soon I was back in the groove and figured out what was going down.
Actually, I think that Yeats' poem was a direct influence on the book/film. Especially taking into account that the title is from another one of his works, and on to such things as Chugarh slowing his truck down on a bridge to take a potshot at a falcon (and missing).
posted by antonio (January 20, 2008 3:54 PM)
Upfront we are educated beyond instinct; apologizing for deconstructing in advance. I took this film as a metaphor for endless war e.g. war on drugs terror and civil liberties and so on and so on.
No one is innocent everyone participates in being both hunter and hunted. They draw sustenance from the same source. the milk scene the ending is perfect as, it does not give resolution. This is war without clear battle lines or combatants. It is unlike any other Brolins Vietnam experiences have not prepared him, nor has Harrison’s own c “modern” experiences given him an edged.
The future belongs to the young, the kids who take “blood money. This noir down to its bones and it is brilliant
posted by blah (January 25, 2008 2:29 AM)
Great movie ... and great comments by everyone
posted by blah (January 25, 2008 2:45 AM)
What do people think about the Carson guy? What a waste of a character ... I mean, he is introduced so well, talks big and shows up by Moss' bedside and I thought he was going to be the next big character to take on Chigurh (or at least try to!) and then bam ... a couple of scenes later is just another victim of Chigurh!
posted by MaryAnn (January 25, 2008 12:54 PM)
Maybe Carson is a commentary on the randomness of life and death: even "good" characters can die unexpectedly...
posted by Hardy Campbell (January 31, 2008 2:53 PM)
So many viewers, so little consensus. Like all allegorical poetry (and that's really what this movie is) this film is ambiguous to the point of each viewer seeing it from their own worldview of life, death and justice. No Country is also a Greek tragedy set in the wastelands of West Texas, with the sage Bell playing the part of the helpless but sage muse, Moss playing the mortal defying the Gods, and Chigurh being the God's emissary on earth, dispensing a divine justice unknowable to humans. Chigurh uses his victim's own flaws to condemn them. "If your rule brought you to this," Anton asks the doomed Wells, "what good is your rule?"
posted by Cathryn (February 7, 2008 11:59 PM)
There's some great discussion here. I finally saw this movie over the weekend and left the theatre suspecting it would require a second viewing; after reading the comments here, I *know* it will. I think the ending will feel more solid - my initial feeling was that it should have happened ten minutes sooner than it did, after Chigurh came out from his meeting with Mrs Moss's, but now I think I just missed some things.
In terms of Lewellyn Moss's exit, I simultaneously was quite disappointed and wouldn't have it any other way. I would have liked to see the final confrontation, even with the same outcome, but . . . if this were the sort of movie that would go out of its way to show that, then it would be the sort of movie I don't generally care for too much. Ah, well. Not too hard to guess how it happened, anyway.
Yep, definitely need to see this one again. I went in knowing little to nothing about it other than the fact that it had been enthusiastically recommended a while back by a friend whose taste in movies I trust, and that certainly allowed the story to unfold in my head however it wanted, but now I need to see it knowing as much as I can about it.
posted by E R (February 8, 2008 3:08 AM)
Howdy, Hardy,
That is a great analysis, of a Greek tragedy backdrop, as the Cohens are known to pay homage in the retelling of a story of morales, and systems of beliefs, using various historical periods in Americana. (O Bro.Where)
The deal here is that this is set in Texas, so the story takes on the full flavor, like driving for miles, hours on the desolate highways.
There is also a couple of questions that still linger after viewing the movie....
like, what happened to shipment from the back of the truck? it figures that Chigurh has it, so why go after the money? Greed or professionalism?
so the characters are whipping in and out of new and old prototypes of society.
Still wonderin' if the milk part is in the book, or in, now that I think of it, in any Greek tragedy...
posted by MaryAnn (February 8, 2008 8:03 AM)
How do you figure that?
posted by E R (February 8, 2008 10:47 AM)
First, Moss sees the shipment in the back of the truck, at the scene.
Next, Chigurh is there, and executes the 2 guys sent by Houston.
Next scene, the sheriff is there the next day, looks at the - empty - back of the truck, and comments on the brown dope...
posted by Nathan (February 8, 2008 12:01 PM)
interesting aside which doesn't get talked about: the character of Chirgurh was most likely inspired by a ruthless El Paso drug-lawyer named Jimmy Chagra. Chagra was involved in hiring the father of Woody Harrelson to kill a judge in San Antonio. then the Coens just happen to hire Woody Harrelson to be in their film.
coincidence?
posted by MaryAnn (February 8, 2008 12:52 PM)
Heh. Gotta be a coincidence, right?
Does he? I'd forgotten that. But anyway, I don't think Chirgurh is after the money as much as he's after the guy what took the money: loose ends, don'tcha know...
posted by David (February 24, 2008 1:03 AM)
Perhaps some of us need two bleak hours with a soulless terminator and an assortment of pathetic souls. I didn't. There is nothing redeeming, or even slightly interesting, about this film. I suppose that was the point. That is, after all, what it appears to be saying about the human condition.
posted by MaryAnn (February 24, 2008 3:21 AM)
Must all art be cheery?
posted by mike (February 24, 2008 7:02 AM)
Ok, Could someone please explain the meaning of the dream at the end?
posted by David (February 24, 2008 9:28 AM)
Of course, not all "art" must be cheery. And since my comment suggested no such thing, your snarky question has uncovered a broad swath of agreement between us. Where we disagree, it appears, is on the question of whether this grim exercise in bleak nihilism constitutes "art." To me, it fails on any number of levels, from disengaging implausibility to thinness of insight. It has a rich color palette and slick editing, and some nice performances, but little else. Yes, some human beings can be inconsistent and irrational, going back with water for the dying drug dealer who they coldly rebuked hours earlier. Yes, some people are killing machines either with or without some operating principles which may have their own kind of plausibility or rationality.. And, if you steal millions of dollars in drug money, you 've likely raised the olds of running into such people. All of this is grim, and probably true in a way that demonstrates how lost and meaningless life may be, but that "insight" doesn't necessarily make for art. And, in my opinion, it doesn't here.
posted by David (February 24, 2008 3:23 PM)
How about this folks. Just try looking at the killer as death itself, AIDS, cancer, a horrible accident. Thats why for instance he is so hard for everyone to understand. He seems to talk jeberish to them but hes bored with their same old resposes. They don't understand his language because they only meet him once. We all race to death, like the dog who chases the cowboy down the river, but also the lazy cop who let's the killer get behind him while he chats on the phone. You can chase death actively or passively but the destination is the same. The ending is clear. The old cop is even more vulnerable to death in an environment which he is unprepared for. Where he will waste away through lack of stimulation. He was safer chasing the killer. Thats the point! No escape. I could go on all night.
posted by MaryAnn (February 24, 2008 4:56 PM)
My question wasn't meant to be snarky. But you suggested that some people "need" nihilism, and hence that no one could appreciate this film as cinema -- as art -- unless we "need" that. I don't think that's true. I, for one, don't "need" bleakness, but I also would find it disingenuous to suggest that the world is not, indeed, quite bleak quite often.
posted by Joe (February 24, 2008 6:02 PM)
I just rented this ppv last night and I have to say I was quite disappointed. All the hype, this movie didnt deliver. With all the build up with the three main characters I thought for sure that there would be some spectacular ending that wouls blow my mind away. Instead prematurely and anticlimactically Moss dies in the Motel, Chirguhr breaks his arm in a random car accident, and TLJ recounts 2 bizarre dreams he had about his father. I usually enjoy movies that make you think and have plots/endings out of the ordinary, however, after Moss is killed, the storyline of this movie became so bizarre and vague that it left myself and others wanting more.
I equate the ending of this movie to the Sopranos finale. Too good a movie/series to have such a bad ending!
posted by MaryAnn (February 24, 2008 7:20 PM)
I think the ending is pretty spectacular. How do you define "spectacular," Joe?
posted by David (February 24, 2008 10:37 PM)
"How about this folks. Just try looking at the killer as death itself, AIDS, cancer, a horrible accident. Thats why for instance he is so hard for everyone to understand. He seems to talk jeberish to them but hes bored with their same old resposes. They don't understand his language because they only meet him once. We all race to death, like the dog who chases the cowboy down the river, but also the lazy cop who let's the killer get behind him while he chats on the phone. You can chase death actively or passively but the destination is the same. The ending is clear. The old cop is even more vulnerable to death in an environment which he is unprepared for. Where he will waste away through lack of stimulation. He was safer chasing the killer. Thats the point! No escape. I could go on all night."
This death analogy seems pretty foolish, particularly in a movie in which "death" marches through the film not randomly, but mainly as payback for those who tried to steal drug money.
posted by David (February 24, 2008 10:40 PM)
The ending was simply odd. The random car accident. The killer demonstrating an odd meekness. Kids fighting over money. And then two odd dreams recounted by an aging sheriff. Anything but spectacular, I think.
posted by KJ Forest (February 24, 2008 11:41 PM)
The movie is in one word, 'Hollywood', as in Gollywood. It's a good drive- in movie, that is, the main purpose is not the movie. Really good for the first hour, then starts a roller coaster of meaniless, unrealistic happenings. Bottom line: The audience at the end just quietly get up and walk out like in a doped trance; at least, that's what the studio thought...
posted by MaryAnn (February 25, 2008 10:27 AM)
Ah, I think we're seeing the problem now. The movie doesn't look like it was directed by Michael Bay, which is why lots of people don't like it. If stuff isn't blowing up, it's simply not interesting and leaves the audience in a doped trance. Got it.
posted by David (the first) (February 25, 2008 10:43 AM)
Okay, now that's snarky -- and also wrong, at least as far as I'm concerned. It's tantamount to me saying that you liked this movie because it's murder porn -- with as much repetitive violence as there are explosions in Michael Bay films. Come on. How many trails of blood, shotgun wounds, or air piston deaths do you need to see?
To avoid confusion, here is how I reviewed the film:
"I sat in the theater for about ten minutes after No Country for Old Men was over. It wasn't the genius of it that left me motionless. In fact, I didn't detect very much genius in it at all. I found none of the characters terribly appealing or engaging, save for the sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones, and he was, at most, an attempted surrogate for the audience--bearing witness to the events of the film and emoting a combination of disbelief, chagrin, and shock. The story was scattershot and barely engaging. And what held it all together at all was a murderous character who seemed to be a superficial study in ruthlessness--a man who, in the relentless pursuit of money, gets to indulge a grim kick for gratuitous killing. Everyone knows that there are bloodless, heartless, and fiercely stoic maniacs in the world, and that there always have been. In fact, in the kind of spoon-feeding I truly hate in movies, Tommy Lee Jones's character recounts a newspaper story about a brutal killing to unnecessarily drive home the point. The only question No Country for Old Men left on the table, at least for me, was, "So what?" It's like Terminator told from the point of view of the machines--a heartless, relentless tale with nary a lesson in it apart from the obvious: Don't mess with drug dealers because you're likely to find a kind of ruthlessness you've never imagined. Not exactly rocket science, and not exactly unimaginable, since it's been done before in better movies, including The Professional.
Part of the reason No Country for Old Men left me cold is that it seemed remarkably undecided as to its own message. As a result, the critics have had a field day coming up with all manner of metaphors they believe inhabit the story and the characters. I could find none. At best, Javier Bardem's killer represented the kind of conscienceless, amoral persona that has become a rather common trigger point for fear and public panic. Not shaded by any empathy or concern for human life, he may be a representation of the modern, existential killing machine who is beyond reasoning with or avoiding--like the carjacker who kills the young mother after she tries to connect with him and provides details of the young children she will leave behind. He is a predator unmoved, and perhaps even disgusted, by other human beings. One monumental problem, however, is that No Country For Old Men provides no counterpoint for this. There is not a single character I cared about who came into the crossfire of Bardem's narcissistic psychopath. In addition, since he mainly focuses his murderous rage on those who, to one degree or another, are culpable in the theft or attempted recovery of drug money, his persona lacks the cold-blooded arbitrariness of so many real killers that make the news.
No Country for Old Men, in the end, is the cinematic equivalent of watching a shark feed. As the movie wrapped up, I thought, maybe the one person spared by our homicidal shadow of a character might kill him in some unintended accident. At least that would put a nihilistic smile on our faces at the end of this otherwise humorless dirge."
By the way, I hate Michael Bay's movies and the entire "explosion/action" style of movie-making. I also happen to like darker endings, and believe that many movies fail by not going sufficiently dark. As for the doped trance, No Country for Old Men was sufficiently uninteresting that it wouldn't surprise me if smart people felt sleepy.
posted by Nathan (February 25, 2008 12:45 PM)
David: have you ever seen Patch Adams starring Robin Williams? i think you'd like it.
posted by David (February 25, 2008 12:55 PM)
Hardly. Do people play keepaway with your hat?
posted by MaryAnn (February 25, 2008 1:12 PM)
Perhaps it's not undecided. Perhaps it's not spoonfeeding you its message, which you said you didn't like.
posted by David (February 25, 2008 1:20 PM)
I didn't suggest that it's messages were subtle or unclear. In fact, they seemed hamhanded and inconsistent. Perhaps, then, you could let me know the subtle point(s) I missed?
posted by Ed (February 25, 2008 1:59 PM)
Writers usually give you clues in characters' names or names of towns, etc...
Anton = Saton
Chigurh = Chagrin, (french: sorrow)
I think you can look at the movie/book in many ways.
The Coens said last night that they had only adapted Homer and this author. Why did they like the book??
Perhaps, it is because it is a very simple tale.
A tale of evil. The evil in man (be it by greed,money lust, etc) that makes him do unbelieveable things, which lead to destruction.
In this case, Anton is the embodiment of evil, almost like a fallen angel, almost supernatural.
Everyone who is tempted by evil (greed) in this tale, meets death (Moss, the drug dealers, the attorney in Houston, Hitman Woody).
All others in the path of Death have a 50-50 chance to die, just by contact with the character, on his way, on his mission.
Clerk, Moss' wife, trailer park attendant...
Which brings me to the question: does Moss' wife die at the flip of the coin?
I thought it was purposely left undecided, but my friend tells me that Chigurgh cleans his shoes (as if he has blood on soles) on the ground...so yeah, he killed her....?
The movie is also set in the early 80's, which was still somewhat of an innocent time, where drug violence was just beginning to rear its head everywhere, even desolate places...
the lament of the sheriff is exactly that: "there used to be a time, when the sheriff didn't have to carry around his gun", now it's "No Country for Old Men"...
it's the changing o' the times, for the worst...
Has this tale been told before? sure, plenty of times, in many ways, over many years...we have all heard the same stories over the centuries...
What makes it cool, is finding new ways to tell the tale...
...and of course, being reminded to shun evil from our lives...
posted by steve (February 26, 2008 2:38 PM)
Great flick, but WHERE'S THE MONEY?
posted by MaryAnn (February 26, 2008 3:44 PM)
It's not about the money. It doesn't matter where the money is. This isn't a Tarantino movie. :->
posted by Fred (February 26, 2008 3:48 PM)
It's about artful snuffing, after all.
posted by MaryAnn (February 26, 2008 4:35 PM)
Do you honestly believe that, Fred?
posted by Alex Knapp (February 26, 2008 5:10 PM)
Since this movie won the Oscar, I decided to give it another chance. And I realized that I liked it even less the second time. For me, this movie is just substanceless, masquerading as substanceful. All of the characters are ciphers, making choices that are just completely senseless to me.
There are terrific stories to be made about innocent people stumbling there way into the world of crime. In fact, several great stories have been told about very similar situations to No Country.
Frankly, I find that No Country for Old Men isn't nearly as good as similar movies in the genre (ordinary people's greed thrusts them into the world of crime), most notably Sam Raimi's A Simple Plan (which features much more understandable and realistic reactions by the characters to finding a cache of drug money) or the Coen's own Fargo (for my money, Gaear Grimsrud is a more believable sociopath than Anton Chigurh).
I hated the ending less this time around, but still find it fairly unsatisfactory. Not so much because Moss died and Chigurh got away (that fit the themes of the film for me this time around), but because Tommy Lee Jones' character was such a lazy coward. (His perpetual disinterest and unwillingness to work on the case really, really bugged me the second time around.)
For my money, two of the better movies that came out this year--and certainly movies that were better than No Country for Old Men--were Gone Baby Gone and 3:10 to Yuma, both of which featured characters that were much more recognizably human than this year's Best Picture winner.
This is not to say that I don't think that No Country for Old Men is a *bad* movie, but I don't think it was the best film of the year, nor does it really rank as near the top in its genre. Again, I cannot recommend A Simple Plan enough in this regard. Both movies had similar themes, but I think that A Simple Plan dealt with those themes far more believably and intelligently.
posted by Fred (February 26, 2008 5:19 PM)
Actually, I was completely serious. I think No Country for Old Men is a very stylish snuff film. It's all quick slick and sanitized to allow it to be "enjoyed" by sophisticates who would rather not admit a certain desire to see human beings dispatched in unusual or disturbing ways by a dehumanizing killer. All of this is wrapped in a very simplistic plot (it had to have at least that) and abstruse philosophizing (to give the talking heads some analytical hay to hid behind), but two hours of dispassionate and at time indiscriminate and cruel killing is what is, MaryAnn.
posted by MBI (February 26, 2008 10:51 PM)
"It's about artful snuffing, after all."
You're a fucking idiot.
Not for calling this movie artful snuffing. For disapproving of artful snuffing. Go back to CAPAlert where you came from.
posted by MaryAnn (February 26, 2008 11:33 PM)
Of course. I love how the Coens fetishize all the death and linger on it. Oh, no, wait, they couldn't have done that, because they had to keep it sanitized for us sophisticates.
I'm so confused...
posted by Ed (February 27, 2008 5:30 AM)
In response to:
because Tommy Lee Jones' character was such a lazy coward.
You have totally missed the movie, and maybe should watch a 3rd time.
The Ol' Sheriff is wise.
The reason he doesnt go out to meet the Feds is that he has seen it all, and knows that they won't get anything out of meeting, just wasting time...
In his exchanges with his deputy, you can tell he is 2 steps ahead of the game in every way.
He is tracking both Moss + Chigurh, but knows that calling the cavalry will get more people killed with these two guys...
So he tracks them, they move fast. He actually catches up with them, evident in one of the final scenes, when he enters room 114.
Chigurh is there but does not kill him. Why ?
Is it his code? or is his mission done, to get the money ?
Why does he not kill the sheriff ?
he obviously had no trouble killing the deputies before.
Another thing, is the Sheriff demeanor throughout the movie, a little bit of sadness....
and wouldn't you be, if your town started getting run over by thugs and violence?
posted by Fred (February 27, 2008 8:16 AM)
"You're a fucking idiot.
Not for calling this movie artful snuffing. For disapproving of artful snuffing. Go back to CAPAlert where you came from."
Don't you just love it when children like MBI graze the Internet?
posted by Fred (February 27, 2008 8:20 AM)
And, yes, it is possible simultaneously to sanitize death and fetishize [sic] it, MaryAnn. The fact that there is so little to this film except a string of killings (along with close ups on wounds), you'd think Mel Gibson was involved.
posted by David (February 27, 2008 10:26 AM)
There is so little going on in No Country for Old Men, apart from the ruthless killing, that I suppose some might legitimately see it as a snuff film. It is, after all, a relentless string of killings, some of which arrive out of left field, and others of which truncate the various story threads before they even have a chance to ripen. And there is this Mel Gibson-ish depiction of violence and violated flesh -- from the strangulation scene to the characters treating their own shotgun wounds.
Again, to me, there is so little else going on in the movie -- it is purely about ruthless killing, it seems, and the chilling/pathetic nature of human beings on either end of the guns or air tank -- that it seems to be a film almost entirely about men killing men (and how vicious the world really is despite all of our pretending to the contrary). It's like watching a series of gladiator matches, I suppose, with no plot other than survival in a war of all against all.
Does that make it a snuff film? Maybe.
posted by MBI (February 27, 2008 10:57 AM)
Oh fucking please. The idea that "nothing goes on in this movie but killing" is stupid because it's a ridiculously reductive statement, but more importantly, because it implies that killing is for some reason an unworthy subject for a film. "No Country for Old Men" is a snuff film like "Die Hard" or "Platoon" is a snuff film. The idea that this movie is an "artful snuff" film indicates that you are neither a) smart enough to engage a film on its ideas, or b) honest enough to enjoy some good movie violence. The very presence of the word "artful" in your insult is mind-boggling; doesn't that indicate that the film is an artistic triumph of some kind? Did you even realize that this film had a plot and characters? Or does that not matter because it was about the oh-so-distasteful subject of violence? God, how could anyone even think of making a movie that has violence in it? Run along back to the safety of the Hallmark Channel so that you don't have to deal with anything that might elicit an emotional reaction of any significance. People like you are going to kill cinema as an art form.
And as a side note, snuff films are meant to be deplorable because they're real death; realistic movie death is not the same thing. Has everyone forgotten that?
posted by joe (February 27, 2008 8:36 PM)
Maryann,
What I was looking for in the ending had nothing to do with things blowing up, a happy conclusion, or any other played out cliches. I was looking for an interesting spin or something different. What I got was GARBAGE.
This movie had a good story, superb acting, great scenes, flawless production etc. etc. etc. IT WAS NOT MOVIE OF THE YEAR NOT EVEN IN THE TOP 20.
ALL the critics with few exceptions loved this movie.....and they are all tools. They heard Coen Brothers and wrote down 5 stars. If they actually watched the movie then they must have realized, "well I didnt really understand the ending and I know the rest of the people wont either so let me continue to be a pompous egotist and tell the world how great it was." And that goes the same for all those who defend it. Just stop.
Fiction is reserved for entertainment. Mixing in serious ideas or making the viewer really think about the lot is achieveable, and personally more enjoyable, but NCFOM missed the mark big time. This movie was pulling it off until the motel scene when lewellyn died, then it spiraled into mediocrity and nonsense. PERIOD!
The only reason these blogs are so popular is people are so shocked by how much the movie sucked after hearing nothing but great things that they seek out what they missed on the internet only to discover they didnt miss anything, YES IT DID SUCK, NO YOU ARE NOT ALONE, NO YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING EARLIER IN THE FILM. PERIOD!
posted by MBI (February 27, 2008 9:11 PM)
"I was looking for an interesting spin or something different. What I got was GARBAGE."
Don't pretend you wanted something different, then complain when you get something different.
As a side note, assuming that people didn't REALLY like something that you didn't like is, has been, will always be annoying and stupid. Tempting, I realize, but annoying and stupid. A far more valid, if equally annoying, response is to call people an elitist douchebag for liking things you don't like -- at least then you don't seem like a moron who doesn't understand that sometimes people have different opinions from your own.
posted by Cecil (February 27, 2008 10:21 PM)
As an aside, Moss returning to the scene didn't allow Chigurh to pick up his tail...the bag did. Chigurh would have tracked Moss regardless of his return to "the scene" or not...Moss still had the bag with the homing device, n'est pas?
posted by MaryAnn (February 27, 2008 11:58 PM)
Maybe you got garbage. Some of us got more.
Tools? Explain, please. What have I, for instance, achieved by publicly proclaiming my love for this film? Seriously. What's the point of pretending to like a film you don't like?
So there's no chance AT ALL that we fans of the film actually like it?
What does that mean?
Ah, I see. So yours is the last word on this film, is it?
posted by Ed (February 28, 2008 12:03 AM)
Question: "What would You Do ?"
Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand?
You seem to forget that the movie is based on a book, and that is the way it was written.
The Coens talked about staying faithful to the story, and that's how it was written.
Sometimes we forget, after seeing a movie, that it all comes from someone's imagination.
I would suggest that you try writing a story sometime. It is a wonderful experience.
A writer never knows how his story is going to end.
The writer starts developing the characters and story, and after awhile, they take life of their own, even commanding the writer to write their lines...its an amazing feeling.
Most viewers complain about Moss' deleted death, but its the same way in the book. But, did we really need to see him getting shot ? would that satisfy you ? really ?
It seems that by the author deleting the scene, it gives a bit of Sanctuary to the Moss character, although shot, his intentions were good (taking money from dead, bad people to live happily and give the best to his wife).
The true question is:
"If you found a big stack of dollars, and nobody knew about it, what would you do ?" ...
I recall being asked this in school at sometime.....
People who answered, turn it over to the police, got the teachers' approval. The young rebel in class, that said, "Sheeet, I would keep it!" got the students' approval....funny, huh?
What's uncanny is the Moss guy's wisdom, when he asks the drug dealer shot in truck, "Where's the last man standing?", and tracks down the cash.
These are truly special characters, well developed if you look closely. Please don't dismiss this as a violence-only movie. Look a little deeper.
Even the lesser characters, like the border agent, reveals alot, at first he drills and hassles Moss, then after hearing he is a Vet, orders someone to give him a ride....uncanny.
posted by David (February 28, 2008 5:06 PM)
First off, in case you were wondering whether you come off as arrogant, you do. I doubt you were wondering, however.
That said, I don't think anyone here said that there was "nothing" in this movie except killing. That appears to be your own strawman, and you did no one a service (apart from yourself) in crafting such an easy target. Moreover, bringing up Die Hard and Platoon likewise serves little purpose. Yes, those are two films in which people are killed. So what? Moreover, whether they are profound or not, Die Hard and Platoon have mountains character development and plot compared to No Country for Old Men -- which has so little of either to make the film, in my opinion, little more than series of visually polished encounters between a disturbed serial killer and his victims.
Although I didn't use the term artful, I can see how it could apply here. I would have preferred the term stylish, or artfully crafted -- since the Coens are skilled in making visually attractive and well-edited films (along with talented DPs). Art can be good or bad, of course, and "artful" doesn't always connote artistic merit.
And so, returning to your strawman, everyone (apart from the hypothetical foe to which you respond) recognized that there were characters here, albeit thinly drawn, and a plot, albeit sheer. It is for this reason the movie left me dissatisfied -- and not, as you argued with your strawman, because it deals with the subject of violence. I remarked on my appreciation for The Professional, a central theme of which is violence. But because, unlike No Country for Old Men, it isn't content with the obvious, it offers a richness that eclipses the Coens efforts. Not even you think, I would have to guess, that The Professional belongs on the Hallmark Channel.
What irks me most is your haughty tone about "killing cinema" as an art form. You like the word fuck, so let me use here: This movie may be art in a broad sense, but it's weak art, as far as I can tell. To the extent that it triggers an emotional reaction, so does getting mugged by a complete stranger. Sure, you can film that act, but great movies should offer so much more.
You suffer from tragic literalism. Snuff films are deplorable not only because they show real death, but also because they appeal to a macabre and prurient interest in the random and senseless -- and often brutally remorseless -- killing of innocents. If you don't get a whiff of that with No Country for Old Men, so be it. I do.
posted by MaryAnn (February 28, 2008 5:35 PM)
If *No Country for Old Men* is "prurient," then any depiction of anything in any way is prurient.
posted by MBI (February 28, 2008 9:48 PM)
"I doubt you were wondering, however."
That's a big 10-4, good buddy.
"That said, I don't think anyone here said that there was "nothing" in this movie except killing. That appears to be your own strawman, and you did no one a service (apart from yourself) in crafting such an easy target. "
No, that one guy called it "two hours of dispassionate and at time indiscriminate and cruel killing". You know, the guy I'm responding to. The one who started in with the whole "snuff film" argument. The one that isn't you. That guy.
"No Country for Old Men" is a challenging film. You think there's "no character development" because it's cold and detached -- personally, I think you're just not thinking very hard, and I love "The Professional" too, but "The Professional" spells everything out for you and "No Country for Old Men" does not. Every film has a philosophical backbone, even really awful and stupid ones which actively try not to have any. "The Professional" is a heartfelt movie and "No Country for Old Men" is a cerebral one -- it may be why you have trouble with it. You're going to respond by saying that, no, there's nothing worth thinking about in this movie, and you're going to sound like a 12-year-old when you do. Either that or you're going to demand that I explain what there is worth thinking about in this movie, which will indicate that you haven't even bothered reading or responding to any of the glowing reviews about this movie, including the one at the top of this page.
And as a side note, "prurient" is a word used exclusively to deride people for deriving enjoyment out of anything. You would be well advised to never use it again. Your sniffy disdain for those who "have macabre interests" smacks strongly of thought police, as far as I'm concerned. Believe it or not, the random and senseless killing of innocents is a big part of the world we live in, and as far as I'm concerned, the world NEEDS movies about it. I hate the "snuff film" argument applied to any actual movie (except possibly actual snuff films) because it implies that there are themes so dark that we should actively look away from them; it's an argument for intellectual weakness.
posted by David (February 29, 2008 2:11 AM)
No one said that.
As for MBI, sorry about the word "arrogant." I should have said "arrogant jerk." Your misreading of my post couldn't be more breathtaking. You are responding, yet again, to your own misreadings. Carry on, I suppose. You don't appear willing or able to communicate.
posted by Klaus S (February 29, 2008 8:16 AM)
You are one of my absolute favorite-reviewers, the other one being James Berardinelli.
Nevertheless - I cannot understand why cynical,violent nihilistic movies like this one becomes so praised. I can't. Here in Sweden too. I think the following from a review in Worls Socialist Website do my emotions justice:
"Critics have been virtually unanimous in praising this film. Technique, proficiency, and boldness are routinely cited as its merits. The same could of course be said of Jack the Ripper. The brutality of actual life, in America and beyond, is stylized and drained of its human qualities. The nobility of suffering and of the hope for redemption—at bottom, these are profoundly human, not theological constructs—are clinically excised. Some just enjoy the ride for what it is. Others inform us that this is a useful and proper artistic approach: reproducing, and in fact enhancing actual brutality as to induce a sense of dislocation and discomfort in the viewer. But this final product is not so much alienating—a jarring artistic experience that can be genuine and constructive—as it is alien."
posted by MBI (February 29, 2008 12:00 PM)
"No one said that."
For the love of God, QUIT IT WITH THAT. Yes, someone said that. You said that. You compared it to a snuff film specifically because of its pandering to prurient interest. You don't get to say things like, "You know what you're like? Hitler. There are definitely similarities between you and a bloodthirsty evil genocidal maniacal dictator," then turn around and act like I'm putting words in your mouth when I say you called me evil and insane. If that's where the crux of my alleged "misreading" comes from, you're being willfully naive about what you wrote. In case you were wondering whether you come off as ignorant, you do. I doubt you were wondering, however.
posted by