No Country For Satisfying Resolution

Rating: 7/10 (15 December 2007)

The first three quarters of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN are great. It contains all the elements we have come to expect from Coen brothers movies: quirky characters, colorful dialogue, grotesque/comical violence, sharp editing, etc. Javier Bardem turns in an instant classic performance as psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh. (He reminded me a little bit of Alan Arkin's character in WAIT UNTIL DARK. Coincidence?) But then it goes off the rails. After steadily building up to a final violent showdown between good guy Josh Brolin and bad guy Bardem, the Coen brothers perversely refuse to, ahem, pull the trigger: Brolin is killed off screen (!), and world-weary sheriff Tommy Lee Jones always just misses Bardem. Bardem is badly injured in a random car accidentis God punishing him? and if so, for whathaving a bad haircut?but limps away to kill again another day. I'm sure this is suppose to say something deep about the senselessness of violence, and our complicity as voyeurs, but it does not, alas, make for a satisfying ending.