Hardly exceeds the hype.

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2007)

No Country for Old Men - This was one, like Babel last year, that everyone was raving about but the hype ended up being more than the film was worth. Well that's not totally fair. I LOVED the first half of this movie. Intense, minimalistic, and fantastic acting from Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem (who probably deserves an Oscar nomination at least for playing evil the likes of which I have not seen since the T-1000). Javier plays Anton Chigurh, a hit-man stricken with pure evil.
See it for Bardem, but about halfway through do yourself a favor and let the first half of the movie stay in your mind and forget that there's an end to the film (There isn't really. It's become the style to let films just float off like kites rather than give them a definitive or interesting ending, like the other film released a month ago, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead) The riveting first half of No Country involves a cat and mouse game. It is engaging, suspenseful, and a treat to watch.
The final third of the movie is cold, detached, and feels rushed, like a few missing reels were taken out of the film. Everyone keeps talking about "an end", "how the confrontation is going to end". Then they pick up right after the "end". What the hell? I thought for a second they had skipped a real. I liked the first half of the film, but kept waiting for the amazing reason this film is freaking 15 on IMDb's top 250. I did not see a reason. Fans of the Coen brothers are likely to enjoy this. I haven't seen Fargo so I can't comment. But I do know that the writer's strike must be working on some level if this is the sort of film the critics are looking to now as possibly the Best Film of the Year. I was really looking forward to this one, but the Hype was stronger than the end result. Maybe a second viewing will improve my feelings towards it.
B