Sadistic, ultra-violent, very few redeeming features, like a finely-painted portrait of fecal matter

Rating: 1/10 (12 December 2007)

I disliked this immensely and I think it will appeal to people who've given up all sense of right and wrong. I'm an Aussie bloke, quite open to influences in movies and broadminded (I like Reservoir Dogs, even Pulp Fiction, Leon/Professional, Bourne movies) but I found this sick. It made me feel like I'd been abused. IMHO its a splatter movie, with sadistic touches done with callous fetishistic relish by the Coens, and IMHO illustrates a debased cinematic sense. Tommy Lee Jones is misused and is cast IMHO to pull in suckers like us who enjoy movies and remember other better roles he's done. It's a schizoid movie with story line of Tommy Lee Jones as an old fogy speaking Texas patois with other Texans in accents so thick that you need a chainsaw to cut to the meaning. That stream is worthwhile; I thought of Last Picture show, Paris Texas, Fargo etc. and a hundred other movies - derivative but OK. The other stream is some loathsome splatter movie, with surgically graphic blood, killing, sewing up of wounds, violence done by a psycho killer - like a mail order catalog of death, blood and viscera. And then it ends on a downer. If you're into splatter movies, if you like walking through and watching excrement and think of it as art or exciting then this is for you. If you think Columbine is exciting or an allegory for modern times and enjoy mass murder movies then this is for you. It reminded me of that loathsome 5 minutes in Pulp Fiction where the bondage perverts tie up Ving Rhames in their basement, but extended for more than 3/4 hour of screen time. If you're into movies that have a story and some art and allow you to leave the cinema not wanting to erase your memories of the garbage you've seen, then avoid this film. I see why Medved and others have given up on much American cinema.