Don't have to be art-house movie lovers to love this!

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2008)

You know what, this movie is for everyone! Yes you may think it's too violent. But every twelve year olds who saw "the saw" movies (or just TV in general), wouldn't be seeing something nearly as violent.
And i would recommend this film over the new narnia movie, just because i truly believe this movie works as a fairy tale too, but one that is so close to reality, but without ever letting the fantasy bubble burst so that it can preach to us.
This film places Texas to be as foreign as any far-away land, with people whose accents/dialect might as well be a foreign language to us, with people whose occupations couldn't be anymore exotic (drug-dealing, shooting a rifle, very exotic), in this film there are king, prince, princess, villain, monster. What's different is that there's not really a happy ending, but rather a dignified ending, i would say it's a hopeful ending, because i felt like it's a new beginning now. Where evil is still amongst us and it will always be, but rather than to avoid or to attempt to defeat an evil entity, we face the devil inside of us and recognize what we truly fear and figure out if it's worth fearing at all.
I really wish more young people my age would see this movie, because it is truly about the post-9/11 generation. I had to see the movie twice to even realize what the title intended to mean. It's provided me images, dialogs, symbolisms, that forced me to think on cross-generational relations, the wisdom and stupidity in both the old and the young, but mostly the fear we share. And whether that fear will make us impotent, or brave to take action.
This is a great film, because within this very entertaining action-slasher-thriller, the film has true humanity and ambiguity, that actually stirred something in me, the same way i can say about 'ratatouille'. but never about pretentious crap like 'there will be blood'.