brilliant but confusing

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2008)

A very difficult film; the Coens spend more than ninety minutes setting up an exquisitely made genre film and then, in the final 15 minutes suddenly twist the film into a meditation on the essential amorality - and inevitable fatalism (in every sense) - of chance. This means that it is easy to discuss the first 3 quarters of the film without spoiling the ending - but the ending seems utterly disjoint from the rest of the film, despite the fact that the narrative remains firmly in place, and the ending really is one possible set of results from the larger part of the film. So the story is certainly well structured - but nothing in the main action of the film prepares for any of the events of the end. The film is brilliantly made; but this almost experimental, uncompromising insistence on uncertainty leaves me more confused than morally challenged.