90 % a Good Movie, and then, There is a Non-Ending...... I gave it an 8...

Rating: 8/10 (13 February 2008)

The Coen Bros. who have a fine body of work, do a Good job of presenting Good vs. Evil, in " No Country For Old Men." The main message of the film seems to be that Good and Evil have no purely defined path or motivation, and they have more common interests than differences, interesting, but NO, that is simply not true.
Based on a novel by Cormac MeCarthy, the story centers around a drug deal gone bad in the Texas desert, and stumbled upon by Llewlyn Moss(Josh Brolin). He tracks down the theoretical last man standing,(the one who carries the money away), that person is found dead, with $2 Million dollars. Not one to turn down his new found wealth, he takes the buckaroos and goes back to the trailer court where he lives with his wife.
Feeling guilt by not assisting one of the dying drug dealers, he returns in the dark of the evening to give him water, only to find himself being hunted down by more henchmen. He escapes, but the money men hire a psychopath,Anton Chigurh(Javier Bardem), to recover the $2 Million , in his own way. Of course he kills people at random, anyone who he chooses to ,sometimes by the flip of a coin, as if he has no will of his own. He is just a regular killing machine, and he has a unique(plot device) way of doing it.
So , you have two story lines going, and then enter a third story line,Carson Wells(Woody Harrelson), a bounty hunter sent by the money men to stop Anton Chigurh. Needless to say, the hunter becomes the hunted. The film moves at a nice pace, the music score kept to a minimum, with regular sounds , ramping up the creepiness... The performances are solid by the top 3, Javier, Tommy Lee, and especially Josh Brolin, who has really developed into a top flight Actor!!!
The major flaw of the film is similar , believe it or not to "Smokey and the Bandit", the two main protagonists, do not meet, and without conflict, there is no resolution. And finally, at the very end where Tommy Lee Jones is rambling on about his 2 dreams, the film cuts to the credits, hummmm, what is wrong with this ?, NO Resolution.. Yes, this does mirror life, but I like my films , like a good cup of coffee, you know that it will end with some satisfaction.... It is 90% a good film, but doesn't satisfy....Maybe the DVD will have 4 endings , like "Apocalypse Now.", at least you would have a choice...
There is also the premise in the film that ,most cops are not hip, and that they don't connect the dots, I found that somewhat insulting, because with all of the murder and mayhem, that scenario is very unlikely.... So, if you like a film with no resolution, or non-ending then you should see it, but don't expect fireworks, just a good, tense thriller with an undefined ending, like math,you can't divide by zero....