No Country For Old Men
Well certainly credit must be given to the Coens for changing up their style and approach: gone is the silly humor and amusing caricatures that made up many of their previous efforts. Unfortunately what we have is a confusing and contrived mess that almost never explains what is happening and goes off on different tangents opposite of the plot seemingly on a whim. Bardem owns the show as Anton though. His deaths-head appearance and hauntingly deep voice give the viewer chills everytime he appears on screen, even as we try to figure out his motives and methods. Brolin shows some maturity for the first time as an actor, and as the film develops into a prolonged cat and mouse game between these two, some tension does manage to arise. Ultimately though, a lack of proper exposition and the fact that some characters (especially Harrelson) seem to have precognitive psychic abilities about certain things left me scratching my head. Also the Coens develop a nasty habit of tricking the viewer that they’re about to see something usually violent about to happen, and then CUT AWAY to another scene! Tommy Lee Jones’ role seems to mainly be picking up the pieces in the aftermath, and his character has a tendency to launch into pointless stories when onscreen that have little to do with the plot. In the end, the Coens stumble thru to the end, with the offscreen(!) death of a MAJOR character, some bitter irony involving Bardem, and Tommy Lee doing little more than feeling sorry for himself. The fact is, JUNO is more deserving of the Best Picture Oscar than this film. In the end, I’d have liked this film better if I didn’t feel like I needed to track down a copy of the original book to help figure out what it was all about…
5/10