Welcome to the Existentialist West

Rating: 10/10 (18 November 2007)

I had no idea just how dark this film would be. I knew that the Coen Brothers could do dark, but nothing quite like this. But perhaps what separates this film from so many of their other great films, is how detailed and symbolic this movie is from start to finish. Every scene has a symbolic message. trust me, you will be thinking about this film for sometime after you leave the theater. Everybody saw the Bardem character in the ads, including his Prince Valiant haircut and odd weapon of choice, and were drawn to the film. Well, Bardem does not disappoint, he is incredible. Bardem's character is a principled killer with a code. Yes, he is insane, but he has rules he lives by and this is what keeps him going in an otherwise cruel and pointless world. He detests those that refuse to take life by the horns and instead settle for what is in store for them. To Bardem's character, everything is for a reason, because if it is not, what is the point. The good guys in the film are perhaps not as structured as Bardem, or are they as goal oriented. Brolin is incredible as a good ol' boy who has no idea what he has stepped into. Jones is his incredible self, playing an aging Sheriff that has hoped that God would have revealed himself to him already, but sadly, has not. He has trouble grasping the changes that he is seeing as he approaches retirement. You spend your whole life trying to create a sane and civilized society, and then you see, things are worse off than when you started. Jones has a terrific quote when he is talking to another aging Sheriff that is dumbfounded by this new generation, Jones says that "when you stop hearing Sir and Mam and the end of sentences, trouble cannot be far behind." Well, trouble is coming, and the times are changing, for the worse, and nothing gets better, and this is not a country for old men.