Watched this last night. Who the hell decided this thing deserved Best Picture? The acting is pretty good, especially Bardem's, and the music is ok. While the atmosphere and the scenery was nice, the actual cinematography was certainly nothing overtly impressive, so what the hell elevated this film beyond anything else?
I think some of you are just way too easily entertained. That, or you didn't see half the other good movies this year. While I will admit that there were some nice "tension building" moments and that this was a good movie overall, this movie had nothing but the obvious going on for plot. And since it lacked any kind of relevant character development or interesting character interaction beyond the occassional decent scene with Tommy Lee Jones, that uber-thin plot just wasn't enough, and this essentially became a B movie. A B movie that made you swallow a couple of pretty large story points and suspend your disbelief. Someone want to explain to me why Llewellyn went through the elaborate "putting the money into the vent" thing? Was it just so he could go buy new boots without anyone breaking in and finding his money?
Plotwise, the writers just kept repeating what had already happened earlier. We get it. Bad guy blows out door, kills people inside or tries to kill them, then patches himself up after shootout or encounter.
The only remotely interesting part of the movie was the villain's psychology, and even that has been done before, the "villain with principles". Maybe I'm jaded, but Chigurh's "principles" didn't strike me as all that shocking. "Best villain ever"...I think that just speaks volumes about how starved we are for good villains lately.
One of the reviews said "Keeps us guessing at what's going to happen next"? On what planet? The entire movie was obvious. You know he's not going to die in the scene where Chigurh is standing outside the door, and you know he's not going to stand and fight, either. I don't mind the ending, and Llewellyn's last stand being shown, but there was a poor transition to it.
As for the themes, they're pretty obvious, and they're well backed up. "Things are getting worse in terms of violence and a lack of empathy for others", "fate", and "badasses" and "inevitability". How did this movie have any more "balls" than any other movie? Because the villain got away?
I like the Coens and they made a good movie, but I'm just not that impressed with it. You want a Western go watch THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. There's a Western that wasn't a complete cliche, and had visuals that beat the crap out of NO COUNTRY.
Like Two-Face invented the coin toss.
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