Utterly Disappointing!

Rating: 4/10 (26 November 2007)

This movie was one of the most disappointing movies I have ever seen.
I fully expected an outstanding story given the reviews, both from critics and from viewers. And, up until the final reel I was not let down. Then we get to the final reel...
The protagonist is killed off screen - did the woman in the pool set him up? And was that her floating in the pool? Did his wife get off with her life? We never heard a gun shot, nor would we expect to I suppose, with the silencer - but we just don't know. The equivalent of Frances McDormand's character from Fargo (Tommy Lee Jones' character here) just quits at the end with some lame conversation concerning a dream he had. And the killer is hit by a car in some contrived deus ex machina, but still manages to walk away, albeit with wounds that are a bit more tricky to self-treat than shotgun pellets in the backside. Whatever happened to the Mexicans? Was the money in the vent at the end? Was that how the killer eluded Tommy Lee Jones? And did the killer end up delivering the money to the gas station owner (the one who correctly called "Heads" in the first reel)? All these questions, and no explanation. I'm sure someone will say that this is a sign of a good movie with artistic twists. But to them I say, this is too much! Even Short Cuts had an overall sense of conclusion, even if no single story line really ended. There's just too many unanswered questions and too many loose ends to have ended the way the Coen brothers wrote this! Again, I expected much, and got much for about 90% of the movie. However, the ending was so bad that I went home severely, ultimately, terribly, disappointed.