A Good Film But Waste Of Better Talent

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2013)

If you like films depicting human trash playing out their cruel and evil deeds, you'll like this. It's well done and what I'm about to say undoubtedly clashes with what many others have said but I am a big fan of the Coen brothers and I just feel they wasted their talents on this film. This is a film of a kind we've seen before and there are others who do films of this genre better. It's also a genre I don't care for. I don't want to get down in the dirt with psychopaths and wanton sick killers when I watch a movie. And I don't think their depiction requires all that much talent. We've got Quentin Tarantino and others of his ilk doing those movies. What makes the Coen brothers great, for my money, is their comic brilliance - as seen in The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, Intolerable Cruelty and so many other films prior to this one. That's where their genius and uniqueness lies. I feel they've lost their way - and this film was the first in their diversion off the path of greatness. What a terrible shame. Can they ever recapture their earlier greatness? I'm still waiting - but will forever revere them as two of the greatest movie makers of all time.