Wasn't that good

Rating: 1/10 (2 March 2008)

I was not biased against the film when I saw it. I loved "The Big Lebowski", and was even amused by the similar theme in the two: both involve a suitcase full of money which the main character carts around, for events to get the suitcase lost, and inevitably leave the audience in the dark as to the eventual fate of the money.
Unfortunately, as great as the movie started out, it devolved into pretentious art-film-like movie-making and a muddled ending with no clear ending. Not defined ending or happy ending, but CLEAR ending. The whole thing came to an abrupt end like a train that hits an invisible wall at low speed.
The cinematography was something worth an Oscar in itself, and I especially loved the way it was shot when Llewellyn discovered the botched drug deal and eventually the money. It was so realistic, you could almost feel the mucky grime of blood drying in the sand or the greasiness of an overused dump-truck, the plainness of the brand-less milk, all the homey settings of a western border-city.
The character Llewellyn isn't very likable. He reminds me something of The Dude in that he's very much aloof to the horrors of seeing the shot-up drug dealers, and casually takes their money and goes home, suddenly remembering one of the dying men asked him for water, and deciding to go back with a gallon of tap water for him, until Anton Shigurh comes after him and he panics, and is forced to become resolute.
In the beginning, Anton Shigurh, played by Javier Bardem, seemed the ideal villain; quiet, utterly irredeemable, seeming the kind of person who would kill someone at any moment without any sort of honor. Even the scene where he makes a shopkeep gamble on his life with the flip of his coin, you fully expect Anton to kill him at any moment, even when he lets the man live.
At about the mid-way point of the movie, it starts to unravel. Perhaps I need to see the movie again, but for the life of me, I cannot begin to wonder what Tommy Lee Jones's character's purpose in the movie is. He promises Llewellyn's wife that he'll make sure Llewellyn lives, and goes about doing nothing but reading the newspaper and lounging about in the office or at a diner. Only once does he visit the crime scene, and towards the end does he come close to the killer.
Next come the nameless character played by Woody Harrelson, and the oh-so-elegantly named "Man in the Office" played by Stephen Root. Woody Harrelson's character describes Anton for us, and then wanders off to meet with Llewellyn, and then get killed by Anton for some reason. Anton then randomly appears in the Office man's office and kills him in the middle of interviewing some guy for a job. Anton doesn't say anything of worth to the other man, and is then back to the western area chasing Llewellyn. I have no idea what that was supposed to be about.
The thing is a mess, as the movie skips ahead slightly with Llewellyn dead, and Anton flustered that he lost the money. In a moment that completely changes my opinion of Anton from cold, calculating, assassin of pure evil, to a pitiful, pathetic, stubborn childish creature that kills Llewellyn's wife just because Llewellyn didn't let Anton kill him.
For some random reason, as Anton is driving off from her house, he gets hit by a car, staggers out with a broken arm, and walks away.
For another random reason, Tommy Lee Jones's character has some retrospect, then gives a long, rambling soliloquy about a dream he had. I have heard many accents, and I have very sharp hearing. I can understand some of the most rambling of mumblings and mutterings, but for the life of me, I could not understand more than a few words of Tommy Lee Jones's heavily accented, mumbling, rambling speech about dreaming about his father.
And it suddenly ended with "And then I woke up."