Disappointing and over-hyped.

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2008)

I enjoyed "Fargo" which I feel is their best work, but "No Country" was boring. The acting was fine, but the story just didn't inspire me. Usually a really good movie makes me want to go out a write ( I am a screenwriter myself). It gives me hope that there are some good stories out there being made into film. But this one...I dunno, it was like someone put a lump of cookie dough onto a baking sheet, and the cookie didn't bake. So you're left with a lump of..cookie dough. I got up in the middle of the movie to buy popcorn and a soda, used the restroom just to entertain myself. I NEVER do that at a good movie. I stay planted and aware. But I had to get away from it for a few minutes. Thank God we didn't pay a lot to see it.
I'm not going to go all out intellectual on this puppy, because frankly, I don't have th energy to nitpick every detail, so I'll skim over a few things that bugged me. I've read some of the other postings by fans of the movie. It seems that the few folks who dislike the film are accused of not "understanding" the greatness of the Coen brothers themes on violence in America..blah,blah,blah. I love movies, seen a lot (foreign and American made) so the reality is, this movie didn't work FOR ME. It bored me, left me uninspired and I regret that I didn't wait until DVD. Potential "spoiler area" ahead. You were warned.
1. They did try something interesting, which is kill off a lead character by the third act. But Tommy Lee Jones's character was not that interesting to sustain the last section of the film. As a writer, I applaud the bait and switch technique of taking out a character that we've followed from the beginning. However, having Tommy's monologue at the beginning, and showing him later in the film does not help sustain his presence once his character takes over in the third act. Plus, his being an old gunslinger weary from the battle is old. I kept wondering if the dynamic would've shifted dramatically had this been a younger sheriff. Every time Tommy Lee came on screen, I just got tired because who looked so drained. I understand this was probably an attempt to be the "message" of the film, (How do old folks deal with changes they can't fathom?), but I've seen that too many times.
2."Quirky" dialogue by the killer and potential victims was not enough to pull this clunker together. As stand alone vignettes at a short film festival, it would've been entertaining. But to string them throughout two hours kills me, and smacks of pretentious dribble. Perhaps if they had opened up the film with that scene in the gas station, prior to us knowing who Bardem's character is, it would've set a tone of unease, given us the rules of the killer's world.Prepared us with the sense of dread whenever he appears then cut to his short capture, and then onto the idiot Moss and his discovery. For this project, I didn't buy it. It smells like a writing technique/device to razzle dazzle us so we don't notice that nothing is really happening.
3. Stupid people do stupid things and kill any chance of me rooting for them. Moss was plain stupid. Although this is set in 1980, don't make the person who we follow in the story stupid. You find money. You take it. You do NOT go back in the middle of the night to bring a man water, A man who you left in the hot desert sun all day. If your conscience bothers you that much, make a call to the police, and you leave town with your wife outside of Texas. What a bonehead. Once you've made the decision to steal the goods, you check the goods and make sure you can't be traced. (the fact that Moss said " I know what a transmittor is" but doesn't check for one, or even dye pellets inside the money, dude you are a screw up and deserve your fate).
4. It just sucked for me. I can't even put my finger on why this flick sucked for me. The cinematography was okay but not that impressive to make up for the story. The acting was okay, but no one in it made me jump up and proclaim "Dagnabit! That boy deserves an Oscar!". The best I could say is that this honestly could've been a made-for-TV movie. The violence was minimal. The cattle prod-gun was cool the first time you see it, but then I started thinking "You're lugging that thing around, and no one notices? You pull a man over in a cop car, but you have no uniform and you have a cattle prod air tank with you, and the yahoos in town just look at you?" More than anything, this movie made Texans look like dumb hicks. (maybe this explains Bush's background) So those are my main reasons for disliking the film. I've heard loving reviews of the theme of the hunter and the hunted, a killer with no conscience and the sheriff with morality leaking out of his a$$. It's all lies I tell you! It is hyped "blah", just like "The Departed" was last year. Any talk of Oscar Buzz is undeserved in my opinion. In it's place I would recommend "Eastern Promises".