Terrible evolution of Coen talent

Rating: 2/10 (19 April 2008)

There have been a number of well written negative reviews of this film, any of which are pretty representative of my view.
I go back to the beginning with the Coen films and have enjoyed many of them very much - I always especially enjoyed the look of their films, the quirky scripts, the entertaining acting.
Visually, the movie was as I expected - brilliant; very well filmed and edited (probably the main reason I rented it). The acting of course, excellent; mostly 'understated' performances designed to convey realistic characters - those worked well.
The story - lazy. A character driven story (but hey, it's really a chase movie) to be sure but the dialog wasn't strong enough to support a mostly character driven story and the story was too 'realistic' to be interesting (this is a movie, not real life). Not interesting, in spite of the tension created by the 'chase'.
Worst of all, the Coens have wasted and bastardized their film making talent by focusing on ugliness, cruelty, and violence. I know that violence has been a key 'selling point' in many of their films but this movie takes it to a new level, it's not even darkly funny anymore.
This is not the kind of film I expect to see the Coens making at this point in their careers though I don't know why my expectations should be so high for them - I don't even know them.