Parts are great, but on the whole overrated

Rating: 5/10 (27 April 2008)

I liked the movie a lot for at least the first hour. However, truth be told, I was braced by everyone I had spoken to about the "awful non-ending." So at least I was ready for a lot of disappointment at the end and that was good, because the disappointment aspect certainly didn't disappoint.
Some observations on the whole: the Llewelyn character is the best in the movie and is killed off so unceremoniously that the movie loses a lot right there. In a weird way, it reminded me of "Psycho," how so much time is spent developing one character and that character winds up being very secondary. Next: the whole Javier Bardem academy award thing is eluding me. To me, this role wasn't even challenging. How is it hard to play a robotic serial killer who delivers every line with the exact same cadence? When I see all the hype this guy got, it makes me wish I got into acting. Nice job mind you, but not a difficult role.
My biggest problem with this movie though is the long string of superfluous characters. Woody Harrelson's character is completely and utterly useless. I'm not sure why that character even existed in this. The Tommy Lee Jones character is deep at some levels, but besides making one phone call to Llewelyn's wife and walking into the one hotel room, he doesn't pursue our villain at all. In fact, he doesn't do much of anything save serve as philosopher-Du-jour (in a hick sort of way) to the audience. I just don't get it --- he in the end, seemed equally useless.
Normally I like movies with odd endings, I really do (I even wrote a novel as such). I enjoyed Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and heck, I even LIKED the way the Sopranos ended --- but this just lost me. Not confused me, but lost me. In the end it all seemed very pointless and if that's the only point the movie makes, all I can hang on to are the positives of some good suspense scenes and some stellar acting by Brolin. Watch it once, and file it under "overrated."