The most amazing movie I have ever seen. New all-time favorite

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2007)

Almost all praises that I feel like heaping on this have already been said elsewhere - Chigurh's ability to make Hannibal Lecter seem like captain kangaroo, sound design that leaves your heart in your throat, beautifully desolate imagery, and quite possibly the most amazing editing and timing that I have ever seen in a film. However, much contrary to rbert65's review, the movie is an absolutely excellent adaptation of the book. I'd go to say it's the smoothest, most accurate book-to-film adaptation in years (especially with crap like "Da Vinci Code" and "Goblet of Fire" sucking out our wallets). The very few details that were left out added some to the story, but would have made the movie around 2:30-3:00 with almost the whole last half being much, much slower; it would have killed the (impeccable, marvelous, and gut-wrenching) pacing of the first 90 minutes. To focus on them would be truly extreme nitpicking - the plot, the dialogue, and the sequence of events is 99% lifted DIRECTLY from the source material. The ONLY detail that was changed, at all, was that in the book the woman moss meets up with just before the climax is a teenage runaway that he picks up from the side of the road and warms up to somewhat slowly (with some amazing dialogue in between might I add) - in the movie, she's a buxom drunken strumpet sitting by the hotel swimming pool that has her way with him fairly quickly. In short, were the movie any more faithful than its current 95%, it would have suffered as a film - The Coens REALLY know what they are doing. the editing was absolutely perfect, with not a single dull moment. The extra interludes of the sheriff would have bogged down the movie; they only worked in the book because the task of reading pages is VERY different from that of looking at a screen.
P.S. - drop what you are doing and SEE THIS MOVIE. if you want to read the book first, go ahead; it'll be just as awesome either way.