Anti-climactic to the point of painful

Rating: 7/10 (8 August 2009)

Plenty has been said of No Country for Old Men's strengths, and it's all true. Dialog, casting, acting and cinematography really could not have been done better.
But ending is so wildly disappointing that it makes the above strengths seem almost inconsequential. After literally two hours of build-up our cast of core characters are finally all going to meet at a single location. This promises to be a magnificently interesting show-down. Instead, the film takes a sharp turn towards the artsy by suddenly killing the main character off-screen and devoting the final 20 minutes to disjointed (though well-written) philosophy discussions.
This might be entertaining for the "cinema" crowd that views the act of subverting expectations and breaking convention as entertainment in its own right. But for the majority of movie-watchers (yes, even the intelligent ones) it's just disappointing.
What was the point of all that tension-building if nothing comes of it but abstracted dialog that would have been just as relevant when the movie began? Why devote ~hours~ building this character if he's going to be ingloriously killed off-screen by unnamed and barely-explained gangsters? Why was Woody Harrelson's character even in the film? In the end No Country will leave you feeling let down, and that's always a bad thing no matter how artfully it's done.