LogFAQs > #971007496

No Country for Old Men (2007)
Adapted and directed by: Joel & Ethan Coen
Written by: Cormac McCarthy
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Kelly MacDonald, Woody Harrelson
Previous status: Read the book

"I mean the nature of you."

This was exactly the movie I didn't need right now. The Oscars don't know shit. This is easily among the worst movies I've ever seen, with my only praise going to just how great of a creep Javier Bardem is as Chigurh here, which he'd later channel in Skyfall. Everything else was just dull, soulless, and thoroughly unenjoyable; the technical aspects were ruined on this waste of my time. Let's just get this out of the way: 1/5

Firstly, the first 40 or so minutes were lulling me to sleep and I found myself playing with my phone. This was so boring and unnecessarily extended without the necessary buildup - in other situations this would work but there's not enough tension, too many tangential stories wholly irrelevant to the characterization in the movie, and just....

I don't even remember the book, FWIW. I mentioned my Cont Lit class reading Palahniuk, but it also had McCarthy's The Road as the final book. I was told No Country for Old Men was better, so like I watched Fight Club, I read that book, and it's from that same time of hazy memories, so... yeah. But don't worry: This is the last I'm mentioning of it, since there's no Gilead adaptation and no Little Women side stories like March (I only recall those four books from that course). I remembered it being more tense and interesting than this was. The Coens just threw all the buildup out the window by killing Llewellyn off so quickly and it came to a screeching, grinding halt.

And then Carla Jean's mother is abruptly and needlessly killed off without any explanation whatsoever; and then they leave Carla's fate ambiguous because she refuses to call the coin (in the book, it seems she called it wrong, and only a true monster from the pits of Hades would murder a woman who'd just lost both her husband and mother - I'd get assisted suicide, but murder?). The car crash was abrupt and... then Chigurh suddenly turns into Llewellyn, buying clothes off of passerby to help his wounds. This goes back to what had happened earlier, showing the difference between a cold-blooded assassin who kills anyone who gets in his way (or has something he needs) and his prey, a stand-up guy who so happened to come into possession of $2,000,000 of drug money. Chigurh is murdering his way through life while Moss is like "Hey I'll pay you $400 to give me a ride." or "I'll buy that jacket off you for $500." However, it's done so suddenly, and it's not effective. Sure, Bardem nails the character, but the only prompt for this change was Carla Jean saying that the coin had nothing to do with it - it was all his choice. And then he changed practically instantly. Did he kill her? We don't know. But he changed.... to which there was no buildup; this wasn't a gradual character growth. This movie finished with a whimper.

My issues with this run deep. The movie is too soulless and morbid, without anything resembling a laugh. There's no real central character - Tommy Lee Jones gets top billing despite Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin having more screentime, and that's because his role was the hero of the novel. The problem with this is that Sheriff Bell doesn't exactly feel like a needed character here - if you remove his entire plot, what changes? The entire conflict is between Chigurh and Moss, with the cops in general as bystanders who don't amount to anything.

I only filled half a page with notes for this one because I was so uninterested. The only part I felt on the edge of my seat for was when Chigurh was at the first hotel (man, there were a lot of those) looking for Moss as he strung together a rod to fish the cash out of the ventilator shaft. And I think that was more a "Finally, things are getting started." And then they never really went anywhere from there.

I don't get the praise for this. I literally hated this movie. It bored me thoroughly. The "hunter and hunted" symbolism didn't mean anything for me. It was terrible timing given the rut I've been in - this movie dragged me deeper into it. And that's why this hammer is gonna help me let out some steam.

@Johnbobb @FigureOfSpeech you both get another nomination. I hope I like it more.