Great technical film but...

Rating: 7/10 (15 December 2007)

I came away wondering what the point was.
The technical aspects of the film (acting, direction, camera, etc.) was, I thought, very well done. I'm still puzzled as to the intent of filmmakers who put a bunch of gore and some very unseemly characters before us.
** Some mild(?) spoilers follow **
In addition, in this case, I was perplexed by Jones' character and little hints along the way that make me wonder what he was about, what he knew. For example, he is never proactive in the investigation yet he follows (as opposed to pursuing) the trail. In the final scenes when he returns to the motel, I noticed he took what seemed to be a large step across the threshold. Did he know that someone else was there? There are clues that he did and that he expected someone to be there. Had he become a nihilist and, by returning, was hoping to get shot to get out of his life? And had the sheriff made the connections between evidence and weaponry as he talked earlier about the abattoir? And what was the point of having names which can be confusingly similar: Ed Tom and Anton (in fact, somewhere late in the film, I thought someone did call the sheriff "Anton").
So, Full marks for the technical film but... I'm not going to try and solve the riddles.