Good but not vintage Coens

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2008)

But good Coen brothers is still a damned good night out at the movies, right? No Country for Old Men falls somewhere between Blood Simple and Fargo, with the gritty gore of the first and the dark humour of the second. But somehow the gore's too casual to be really interesting or shocking, and the humour's not quite sharp enough to make this a funny film to match Fargo.
It IS good. But I think the huge score here on IMDb really reflects the sheer relief of seeing the Coens back in the swing of what they do best post-Ladykillers.
NCFOM is deceptively simple, giving the characters room to develop and breathe in that unique Coen way. However, apart from the fantastic sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones, none of them are quite up to scratch.
The killer is menacing, sure, but is SO relentless that I felt some of the threat dissipate, rather than increase. His indestructibility leaches some hard reality from the film.
Most of the parts are played wonderfully, with mostly no-name actors acquitting themselves well in possession of a very good script. The exception is the usually reliable Woody Harrelson, whose part here is two-dimensional, and who fails to convince in any context.
Personally I felt the absence of a smart plot turn. The Coens always offer up the unexpected, but here those twists are mostly about the characters, rather than the story. From a duo who built their early career on clever convolutions, this feels just a bit lazy.
All in all, this is a workmanlike, rather than inspired, effort from the Coens. But it still kicks most other movies' butts.