Simply boring

Rating: 2/10 (1 March 2008)

I am just puzzled by the high ratings, the Oscars etc. Many of the critics on this site who have given this film a poor rating have pointed out the pointlessness and implausibility of it all; the plot inconsistencies; the fact that one of the two main characters just disappears (and his wife - well what happens to her?); the way the whole thing just dies on its feet at the end (if anything that was never alive can be said to die); the fact that the Tommy Lee Jones character hardly interacts with the plot at all. Even Javier Bardem, while striking in a way, is simply an unexplained psychopath with no apparent character, motivation, past or - for that matter - purpose. Lacking these he's not interesting. But overall the film is simply boring. It's slow and pretentious. Watched on DVD at home you'd probably give up, or at least get on with other things with it on in the background, occasionally popping into the room to ask 'has anything happened yet?'. Trapped in the cinema you might not actually walk out, but at the end you'll wonder why not.