Coen Brothers strike again -- with a dog!!

Rating: 2/10 (15 November 2008)

In brief, the Coen Brothers are among the most overrated filmmakers alive today. Nearly every single movie they make, contains no real ending or payoff for the audience. (Exception: "Fargo") No, I'm not talking about a happy ending or one that is typical Hollywood. I'm talking about no ending.
Their stories usually start out well, but their strengths as filmmakers are not in the actual storytelling, or script. It's in their style and the "look" of their movies. But all style and no substance is not great film-making. Which was obvious from their first highly overrated movie, "Blood Simple." This movie typifies that. As another reviewer here wrote, this is a glorified B movie, with self-indulgent pretentiousness. I've said this since at least "Barton Fink" but probably even before then: The Coen Brothers are masturbatory filmmakers. They make movies for themselves, what pleases them, and don't give a crap about their audiences. It's clear they don't care whether we have "cartharsis," or closure at the end of their movies. And there frequently are no arcs in their characters, or the story itself.
In this movie, the killer remains the killer... he never changes. The Josh Brolin character never changes... he just runs till he's killed. The Sheriff never changes... he's a philosophically "sad" guy who decides to retire after seeing all the blood and mayhem during the story. No arc for this guy.
I never read the book, so I don't know if the story is "flawed" in the first place. But this movie is very flawed, and it's a total joke that it won an Oscar for Best Picture. This is ludicrous. (Probably what happened was the other nominated films split votes, so this one squeaked to the win.)
Besides no arcs, here are some more flaws: We never learn or understand who the Mexicans are, or why they're chasing the money. Presumably there are 2 factions of Mexicans, one buying and one selling the drugs, when the deal went down. We learn that an Anglo businessman is behind something here (either the buyer or seller, probably the buyer), but he hires Woody Harrelson to track down the money. So why is there a contingent of Mexicans after the money too? Makes no sense.
The drugs also disappear from the flatbed truck at some point, so where do they go? Who got them? If the Mexicans, then why would they still be after the money? And if the Anglo businessman got them (via his 2 business guys that Javier Bardem kills), then why is HE after the money?
Ludicrous, totally ludicrous. The story makes no real sense. Furthermore, who is Javier Bardem? And why is he after the money? How does he even know about the money? Who hired him, if anyone? You want story logic, don't expect it from this movie!
Speaking of no story logic, gotta mention this last one, the scene between Bardem and Harrelson in the hotel. So Bardem is after the money, yet he shows up to speak to Harrelson (and eventually kill him). Why? He says he knows where Brolin is, so why doesn't he just go to where Brolin is? By not doing so, Brolin then gets away. Sure, Bardem is a psychopathic killer -- after all, everyone says so -- but only in his pursuit of the money. He doesn't go out of his way to kill people... only in pursuing the money. Yet he does go out of his way here, with the Harrelson character. Lame lame lame. What a horrible story this was.
You want to see a good thriller? Rent something else. You want to see a "cool" style with good cinematography, but don't care about story AT ALL? Then this will do.