Tangible Fear As Art

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2008)

I don't remember being so scared in a movie theater since "Don't Look Now" Here the Coen Brothers take everything a step further with exhilarating ease. The terror was genuine and not because we were rooting for Josh Brolin or anybody in particular. The terror was personal, Joel and Ethan Coen made that terror visceral and tangible. It has to do with our own nightmares. Josh Brolin was a perfect piece of casting because in a way he doesn't have many personal colors. He's one of the bunch, one of us and we could put ourselves in his shoes. That is the art of film narrative expressed in a way that we've never experienced before. I heard people old enough to have seen Hitchcock's "Psycho" in the theaters and what glued them to the screen was their own fear. Well, that's what I've experienced here. Javier Bardem is superb, considering that he's the reason for the fear. He carries a human/inhuman kind of strength and we know he'll get us, sooner or later and if we consider the ending of the film, he might still do. Worthy Oscar winners, all of it and all of them.