"You HAVE to do this"

Rating: 10/10 (3 January 2008)

Well. What can I say other than: "I was wrong"?
I completely misread this film. At first it angered me with it's dangling situations and lack of conclusions.
Still, I watched it again and again, at least seven times. (Not an easy task as this film was never in wide release in my area.) I watched it again and again and if you asked me why I was continually watching a film I claimed I didn't care for, I would have no answer for you...
Other than it mesmerized me and there was something deep within the film I had missed in my reactionary knee-jerk original response (Which is below.)
Don't watch this film. Study it. Over and over again. Javier Bardem MUST get an Oscar for his amazingly cold portrayal of a mechanical killer. In fact, every actor in the film is worthy of praise.
Does it end tidily? no. Not by a long shot.
This story is not the ending...
see it again and again.
You'll find the genius in it.
------------- This is an awful tease of a story that ends abruptly just when you think every aspect of it will begin to come together to form a D'enouement or climax, or at least make sense.
It is a pointless, ponderous, pretentious film consisting of nothing but light, shadow and words (-and precious few words at that!). I have watched it four times and it is an intellectual and emotional sucker punch. Not since 'The Majestic' and 'Gigli' have I gone to the theater and felt so robbed.
Though moody and well shot, I didn't find it entertaining or clever. The lead character is killed off screen. His wife might be dead. The money is gone. And we are left with not the slightest idea or hint of what really happened, other than a monologue from a retired sheriff who whines about how he finally realized he had a thankless, dangerous job.
It is a film you have to sit through so you can (finally) get the point of it; violence is dangerous to people and if they're lucky, makes them old before their time. Maybe that's a surprising idea to some, but as a combat veteran, I don't need to sit through a film to know that.
I'll go out on a limb here and offer that anybody who has ever rubbed shoulders with trauma doesn't need an overly long Hollywood treatment to tell them violence is unsettling and soul consuming.
This is a film devoid of any conclusions, repercussions, resolutions or (finally) value. Yet, Apparently we're all supposed to rush down to Starbucks and huddle in excited circles while we discuss amongst ourselves
The phrase 'cop-out' comes to mind. In fact this movie reeks of a film school student trying way too hard. It would have made a better graphic novel.
People who find value in this film are the same suggestible types who see Jesus in a piece of toast, or the virgin Mary in a rust stain on a highway overpass...
THERE IS A REASON WHY THIS FILM NEVER HAD A WIDE RELEASE. When an expensive film fails to achieve a wide release it is the studio or producers or distributors or even the director(s) telling you it is a flawed film.
Honestly, each time I left the theater I felt as if I was denied the second half of the film...
Save your time and money.