I know why there is no country for old men!

Daniel Scillieri

Theater: AMC Loews, Friday November 23rd


Personal Grade: C-


I know I know, most of you who read this will disagree with my personal grade, but if you haven't seen the movie then you don't understand. If you do spend money to see this film, I am pretty sure most of you will feel the same as I did when the credits began to scroll. No Country For Old Men is a movie about an average man in Texas who stumbles into a drug deal gone terribly wrong. Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss, who investigates the bloody scene where the drug trade went down. He continues to search for what happened and finds a satchel with 2 million dollars and the suspense begins. The opening scene of the movie introduces Javier Bardem who plays the psychopathic serial killer/hitman named Anton Chigurh. His calm killer personality and unorthodox style of killing everyone really gives you a creepy feeling. Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell who is an older officer who is closing in on retirement. These three stories combine for a suspense filled action movie that keeps you guessing and wondering what will happen next. Here are my Pros and Cons of No Country For Old Men and you can see why I gave this movie such a poor grade.


Pros:
This movie had so many awesome elements, that could of easily given this film a higher grade. The action and suspense keeps you so focused on the characters and you can't take your eyes off of the screen. Javier Bardem's character is one of the best villains I have seen in a film in a very long time. His absolute "kill anything" mentality while keeping such a calm composure makes him an awesome bad guy. One scene he uses his silenced shotgun (crazy I know) and kills 3 drug dealers who are waiting for Llewelyn Moss. He catches the last guy who is trying to hide in the shower and begs for his life. Without saying a word or changing his expression, he simply pulls the shower curtain closed and shoots the guy anyway, protecting himself from the spray of blood. Llewelyn Moss is also a hero you can really cheer for, he is just a smart character doing clever things to escape the killers who are close on his tail. More than a few times, I leaned over to Scott to say "this movie is awesome" or something along those lines. 3/4 of the movie was great, definitely worth the money to see it. But it was not the whole movie which is why it earned such a low grade. Here is why!

Cons:
The cons mostly came in the last half hour of the movie. The movie is great, one of the better I have seen in a while, but out of no where it falls off a damn cliff or something. It goes from being awesome to amazingly terrible. I don't have any idea what the Coen brothers were thinking...It was going so well then all of a sudden it completely changes. I can't explain the sudden change because it would give away the movie, but I can say what was said between the Talking In Movies team. "well what just happened" and "whats going on" was a regular comment for those last 30 mins. So much goes unexplained and Tommy Lee Jones' character becomes so ridiculously confusing and almost unnecessary that is leaves you wondering why he was even in it. He talks about the most random things and then bam the movie just ends... screen goes black and the theater is silent. We stood up and I was literally speechless, the only way I could describe this amazing fall to terribleness is that I was stunned. There was way to much left unsaid or unexplained and it ruined the movie.

So in conclusion, The first 3 quarters of the movie were awesome, everything I was hoping for until the sudden change. The last 30 minutes of the movie simply crush the whole film and dropped it's grade so much. It could of been one of the best films of the year but I don't think there will be any awards for this Coen Brothers film. If you are a fan of the directors then maybe you will enjoy this film more than me but in my opinion wait for DVD to see this movie.


Favorite Line:
Man who hires Wells: [about Chigurh] Just how dangerous is he?
Carson Wells: Compared to what? The bubonic plague?