No Ending for These Men

Rating: 5/10 (21 March 2008)

This film has no ending. I mean it. The third act has no resolution, no climax, no tying up of threads, no questions answered, no drama, no action, no character-arc completion, just... nothing. It's made all the more terrible by the fact that the first two acts are very well done and worth watching. For almost two hours we are led on an intelligent, tense cat and mouse chase, then suddenly - POOF, the Coen brothers make all the good stuff go away in a single moment. The viewer is left thinking two things: "what the F**K?" and "I was enjoying that until..." It's a bit like lighting the fuse on a really big firework, standing back - tense with anticipation - watching it sail up into the air and then... it fizzles into the night sky without so much as a sound. A dud. A complete and utter dud.
You don't need any spoiler alerts here as there is no story resolution. Aside from one character, you actually aren't even told what happens to any of the other people you just invested two hours in. Oh, and by the way, don't follow that bag of money, because you never even find out who gets it. Don't follow that good guy vs. bad guy plot line, because neither of them ever confront the other - oh except on a telephone call about two thirds of the way in. Don't follow that... Oh wait, there aren't any other subplots to follow anyway.
I suppose I can't entirely blame the Coens as I'm aware this came from a novel. I haven't read the novel but if it ends as unsatisfyingly as the movie did then this man has no business calling himself a storyteller.