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Re: *** Official NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN Discussion Thread
Saw it this weekend. Haven't enjoyed a Coen film as much since Fargo, and I may even prefer it to that film, although I still have to chew on it a bit to really determine its merit.
Everything they're saying about Javier Bardem is true. You can't look away any time he's on screen, even when you want to.
Most of the film's running time is a flawlessly executed thriller, a la Blood Simple, with some semi-philosophical musings from Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff character thrown in. Then the last act of the film takes a narrative turn that will leave some viewers frustrated, but which really serves to foreground those hitherto background themes and forces you to think about them. Your willingness to do so will largely dictate your response to the ending.
I guess I don't really have to avoid spoilers here, but I will anyway, since it appears few have seen this one yet. Suffice to say that this is a must-see, certainly a return to form for the Coens, although it will divide people.
--Jefferson Morris
"If fakes, they were masterpieces."
--The New York Times commenting on Willis O'Brien's dinosaurs in The Lost World (1925).
"From the two trailers I've seen, the movie looks like AIDS."
--Recent thread post on AICN
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