Too much hype and lack of substance

Rating: 1/10 (5 March 2008)

Although the film has its merits, I would consider it a letdown - and definitely not worth all the Oscars it received. In a way, it has some kind of a misanthropic note and this is probably the main reason why I hated it more than I liked it.
We are confronted with strong graphic violence right at the beginning when Bardem's character kills the deputy and grins happily after the victim stops moving - the subtext obviously being that this man is simply the incarnation of evil. I guess the scriptwriters wanted to make sure this message really gets through so the viewer has to endure pointless massacres of totally innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it gets even worse - those of you who thought Chigurh is simply taking revenge on the human race are in for a big surprise as he obviously seems to love exterminating life in general i.e. there is a scene where he pulls back to shoot a bird perched right beside the road - just for fun and the sheer pleasure of seeing a creature die...
The film acts mostly according to its own logic which often defies common sense and stretches even the maximum suspension of disbelief, taking a lot of unlikely turns and twists which are only supposed to push the story along the scriptwriters' ideas. One of things that disturbed me most though is the way this film deals with the portrayal of the mass murderer Chigurh is: he has "principles" i.e. lets some of his potential and totally clueless victims gamble for their lives and then teaches them some conventional wisdom, he is polite to the people he is about to kill, he has his own "rituals" such as checking his soles after leaving a crime scene, he is never rude to anyone (no cursing) etc. etc. Such nonchalant and casual depiction of evil is deeply disturbing in that it makes it somehow appear acceptable - a notion I absolutely disagree with. Apart from that, we never learn what made Chigurh become what he is - he is simply there and he is evil and cool, that should do... Too bad all of the characters in this film lack development: Llewelyn is an emotionless and not particularly smart bumpkin who stays that way until he disappears, his wife is nothing but worried and scared of what might happen all the time and then at the end of the film she suddenly becomes quite courageous and refuses to gamble on her own life thus choosing certain death! Plausibility is something that can be hardly found in the whole script so why expect it at the end?
So if you are looking for a message here is one - life is fragile, evil will prevail, generally things tend to change from bad to worse... or was there any message at all? Maybe there was none. Maybe we were just supposed to enjoy the cinematography and the performance the actors delivered. To me, this still did not redeem the film - it left a big black hole and bitterness inside of me... or maybe that was what the filmmakers intended? Who knows...