One of the best most intense film experiences ever - I've never loved and hated a film so much at the same time.

Rating: 9/10 (24 April 2011)

This film is tense. That is the biggest aspect of this production for me - I have never before experienced film so suspenseful that even a cut to a different angle makes me jump. To get the praise out of the way as I'm saying nothing new - it is masterfully directed, acted, written, paced and shot.
However - I hate this film's ending. I was actually seething at the last 20 minutes or so that I just sat there reeling, not really taking in what happened. Mild spoiler alert, but the film builds up for an hour and a half to an epic final showdown with a character that we have followed since the beginning that we are really connected to, and then it just cuts to the aftermath. It skips over the ending. It take the most anticipated moment of the entire film and just dismisses it, giving us no details of how or when it happened, just the result. And I just sat there and said aloud 'WHAT?' to myself. I felt so cheated out of a satisfying ending that I just stared blindly at Tommy Lee Jones for next half hour or so.
Now, apparently this is how it happens in the book, but I think it's safe to say in this case, that breaking away from the source material would've been preferable - even if they had to make the film 2 and a half hours instead of 2, that would've been better than successfully creating a character and then just cutting their development arc short just because the book did it. Hell, it probably would've even supported the Sheriff's message at the end even more.