Superb acting, OK storyline

Rating: 7/10 (22 January 2008)

Tommy Lee Jones, as always, delivered a convincing portrayal of a 'Tommy Lee Jones'-character. Big surprise for me was Josh Brolin. Living in the South, my kinsmen and I always have a good laugh at those actors who attempt to pull off the Southern dialect. In the last few years, more and more actors are starting to get it down. Prior to that, it was pure comedy--almost like trying to get Brett Favre to pull off a British accent. Brolin, however, really delivered a convincing performance of someone you might actually run into in the South (Texas, more specifically).
Call me old-fashioned, but I've had enough of the movies without any sort of closure at the end of the film. I can deal with the blur between protagonist and antagonist in some films, but this one really wasn't one of those. Good guys and bad guys were pretty clearly defined during the film from a traditional values perspective. I realize that in the real world the bad guys don't always pay for what they've done, but I'm going to the movies to escape the real world. I get enough of that on the news. Let me leave the theatre with a good feeling instead of feeling angry. There's nothing creative about stirring that emotion in film-making (or writing)...that's easy.
Despite the ending, there were scenes that I loved and/or to which I could relate. One pivotal scene--defining the film title so vividly--was the one between Jones' character and that of Barry Corbin. If you're a Southern man, you may find as I did that this is perhaps the most definitive scene of your identity in the modern film era. This simple little scene alone made the film to me; otherwise, I'd have given it a 6.