No Country for Old Men

“Coen Bros. succeed again in making me not understand the hype”

There are some directors in Hollywood that I don’t totally get and I think the Coen Bros. may be one of those directors.  Suffice it to say, No Country for Old Men seemed like a gritty, violent, dark flick and that’s something I do get.  It’s also been garnering some serious critical acclaim, so I had that to boot.  I figure, “Why not? I’ll give it a go”.  I did and I can honestly say, I still don’t think I get the Coen Bros.

Which is weird, because I ended up watching Fargo after I saw No Country for Old Men, and found myself enjoying it.  Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy No Country for Old Men, but I didn’t see the big deal.  It was certainly a fine film, dark in style and humor with really memorable characters.  It’s this sort of New Age Western, where the violence is very life-like and the characters aren’t black and white.  Everyone’s got blood on their hands and no one comes out clean.  

Which I suppose it’s the strength of the film.  Javier Bardem is the best villian in cinema since Hannibal Lecter, as his presence looms over every single scene.  He is the most evil, robotic bastard ever and yet you seem to root for him.  He helps establish this dark, ominous tone to the movie that really does make this a pretty good experience. That being said, there are detractions.

Apparently I am the only person that doesn’t get some of the Coen Bros. humor.  The gas station scene irked and annoyed me.  The general way conversations went frustrated me.  I could do deal with this if it was here or there, but it really get’s talky and boring.  I found myself tuning out of the dialogue until Javier Bardem came back or Josh Brolin came up with some other great scheme to continue running, which may be because I’ve been indoctrinated into American cinema with the attention span of a 2nd grader with ADD. But I asked the people I went to see it with, and they agreed.  I wasn’t alone!  And one of them is a big Coen Bros. fan! Take that!

I can say No Country for Old Men is enjoyable and gritty, but I cannot tout it as this “new classic”.  It really isn’t as good as Fargo(a movie I liked, but still didn’t get the hype for it).  Do not listen to the hype on this as it does tend to be a bit boring.  I give this a 7 out of 10 Bones for being dark and brooding and loses on being long and slightly boring.

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