The discussion is the point

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2007)

Before anyone assesses this movie properly, one must look at the fact that the Coen brothers knew what they were doing each step of the way. When we're told Moss is a Vietnam vet, our expectations are intentionally being set up. Another reviewer here was disappointed in the simplistic caricatures in the film. But when you consider the menagerie of interesting and clever characters these brothers created before, you have to consider that these caricatures are all part of the plan to set the viewer up by exploiting viewer expectation. Simply *casting* Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff is a setup. On and on...a drug deal gone bad...a hero determined to defeat the villain...these expectations are engineered and betrayed purposefully.
Like Michael Myers (Halloween), the villain is intentionally inexplicable and omnipresent. He is intentionally overwrought, oversold, and overinvolved all over the film. In some ways his presence in the flick is reminiscent of Barton Fink -- and this comparison is a useful tool to analyze the movie: In both movies, an irrational psychopath's senseless violence rips through the plot line. In Barton Fink, the cherubic John Goodman and the exaggerated irrelevance of the violence slap the viewer with a dark humor that entertains. It leaves the viewer wondering "What was that about?" but does so while giving the viewer what they seem to want. It is almost as though the Coen brothers simply decided they had not made their point strongly enough and wanted prove that the viewer is, in fact, a tool.
In No Land for Old Men, the senseless violence is dressed up to look like a plot mover. The viewer EXPECTS raw violence in a drug deal gone bad. They expect violence between rough hewn men in a bleak western landscape. The Coen brothers provoke and exploit these expectations at every opportunity, giving clues along the way that some violent climax is about to unfold. "Keep watching, the violence will make sense." INSTEAD, the senseless violence leaves only these broken expectations in its wake. The directors want you to see the violence for what it is: senseless. Ridiculous.
And when the end of the movie comes and you are slapped in the face with this reality, you are one angry viewer. And that's what they want. You should be angry. You WERE shortchanged. You were screwed. And when you go into another movie that gives you what you want, you are still a tool.