Compared to 'Blood Simple' and 'Fargo', a major disappointment.

Rating: 4/10 (15 January 2009)

The first Coen brothers movie I ever saw was 'Blood Simple', I thought it was one of the best movie of that year and one of the finest crime drama I ever saw. When I saw 'Fargo I thought it was brilliant, it was clever and entertaining. Comparing it to 'The English Patient', which beat it for best picture Oscar, I thought that the Coen Brothers were robbed. Now with all the praise being heaped at "No Country For Old Men", I was expecting a lot. Unfortunately what I saw was a film that pales in comparison to the previous two films. I have not seen any of the competition but if this IS the best film I have to say what a disappointing year.
My main problem with this movie is that it moved too slow. A lot of times a scene lingers before the payoff. We see the character of Chigurh prolonging a scene before the inevitable and since we know he's a ruthless killer we know what he's going to do. It also take a long time before the main plot line gets rolling or at least it felt like a long time. Some of the scenes with Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff also just feels so painfully slow. Making Tommy Lee Jones seem boring takes a lot of shall we say wrongly applied effort.
The main plot line of the movie involves found money, a drug deal gone wrong, a ruthless assassin. and the cops trying to solve things. I don't need to say anything else about the plot because it's pretty easy to figure out. We know what Chigurh was after but we don't know how he got involved in the first place did he set the drug dealers up? There are numerous plot holes that opens up a lot question but does not answer them.
I don't know why the Coen brothers set the movie in 1980, I suppose that's when it was set in the novel but it certainly has a faded look to it and at times even painful on the eyes. The movie has virtually no music. I have said that in my comments on "Cache" and "Abre los Ojos", that the lack of music in thrillers is refreshing. However in this movie the lack of music is deafening. It doesn't work this time.
The acting is very good. Javier Bardem, who plays Chigur, is very scary. He plays it like a human terminator. Very emotionless, he doesn't flinch, he doesn't blink, and he doesn't take no for an answer. Although I have said that Tommy Lee Jones was dull at times I have to say that he was good at playing his character. Josh Brolin who was at the center of the action finally is beginning to convince me that he has a future in the big screen something that eluded his dad.
Overall It's a movie with a plot that's easy to comprehend, but just plods along in certain areas and have many situation that was unanswered.