No country for believability

Rating: 5/10 (12 January 2011)

This movie felt contrived, over the top, and forced, and oh yeah MANIPULATIVE, from day 1.
Let's see.
Ridiculously powerful and over-armed Mexican drug lords tied in with the DEA. Check.
Ridiculously omnipotent all powerful bad-ass guy who is like a primevil force of nature and just goes around killing people who rub him the wrong way for sport, yet he is never in any danger of being arrested or killed. Check.
Idiotic red-neck who makes so many idiotic mistakes (like returning to the scene of the crime, DUMBASS) he should be dead 1/2 an hour into the movie yet miraculously survives. Check.
Grizzled old veteran 'cowboy-cop' who is wise like Jedi and yet strangely lazy as all git-out and never has to face the evil dude. Check.
I could go on and on. Really, throwing a suitcase over a bridge into some bushes at the US-Mexican border in the middle of the night? Really? You think you'll ever see that again??? And how the heck did Woody find it? And really, let's pay a huge big name actor, Woody Harrelson, for ten minutes of bad acting, so he can get blown away and shock the heck out us? Sorry, didn't bite, I basically slumped back, shook my head, and said, "well why the hell did they use Woody then?" And what exactly was Tommy Lee Jones doing? Wandering around, thinking about retirement, mumbling, not figuring out the stupid slaughterhouse weapon thing, BORING!!! Only to come within ten feet of the bad guy at the end and walk away! WHAT WAS THE POINT? And finally we are treated to seeing the bad guy get in a car crash. The car crash doesn't actually kill him. He still get's away... WHAT WAS THE POINT??? This movie is one long wandering boring search for a point. There is none.