Way way overrated

Rating: 6/10 (30 March 2009)

This movie is a very good example of why I don't watch the academy awards. There is no way this is award material. The first hour and forty five minutes were entertaining and nicely shot. It was shot mostly in New Mexico, where I grew up, and to be honest anything shot there shows well because of the beautiful vistas and contrasting landscapes. So the movie gets little credit for that. This first part of the movie is mostly the bad guy meeting people and you are just wondering, will he kill them or not. Not much of a character or plot development scheme. Tommy Lee Jones character seems sort of like an afterthought. And how unrealistic is the fact that people are getting killed all over the place, automatic gunfire is erupting in hotel rooms and in the streets, and there are no cops or other law enforcement agencies involved except some old sheriff from Texas. The final 15 or 20 minutes are really what suck. It is almost as though the brothers were ordered to make the movie about 2 hours in length so they just plastered in random stuff (the car crash, what the heck was that?) and then tried to finally develop Tommy Lee's character.
This is what is wrong the the Oscars. Maybe I need to read the book.