I like it, but I think its been over praised and over hyped

Rating: 7/10 (5 January 2008)

I'm going to have to think about this film a while. I watched the new Cohen Brothers film because of all the best picture nods its gotten in the last couple of days. Clearly my thoughts on the film have been colored by the high esteem the film has.
I like it I don't don't love it. Deeply Philosophical and existential western chase film seems to have been put on the screen to win awards. The film seems more allegory than real with a few twists (the late night move by Josh Brolin that makes everything come together is clearly deus ex machina- actually it makes it Greek tragedy since that one act is the weakness that brings down the wrath of the god(s).) and its drive to be about something deeper helped keep the film at arms length for me. Actually the real problem was I never liked Josh Brolin's character. He is marginally better than his pursuer and I never really felt I knew him enough to care. Brolin's Moss' every man in conflict with force of nature/hand of malevolent God Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh isn't someone I could identify with except as a literary notion of a flawed Gary Cooperesque character. These are archetypes not real people. Its so arch and over the top-at least to me- that I wanted to laugh at the silliness of the machismo (though Anton Chigurh is probably one of the five most malevolent characters ever to walk across the screen). I'm curious what the film would be if the Greek chorus bits with Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson were removed since I think its these often oblique passages, while genuinely thought provoking, are the reason that everyone feels the film is something more than a good western tale. (What if we had a Greek chorus commenting on the events in the James Brolin film Night of the Juggler, would that have made it more than a chase film?) I really DO like the film, I just can't believe that the film has been so invested with such deep meaning (Things thought of while watching the movie: The end of Greed; the failed Cohen brother's attempt at filming James Dickey's To the White Sea; any number of 1930's or 40's westerns;Zane Grey and Louis L Amour Westerns; Mindwalk;Frankensteins pursuit of his creation into the wastes; ...and a few other things-several other bleak chase films- that have started to fade with the lateness of the hour) Oh yea and as for the off screen events that people have complained about...I think they're crazy. I think we see what we need to.
7.5 out of 10