Befuddlement Over No Country
I just watched No Country for Old Men and have to say I didn't get it. I see the videographic relationships with Fargo and Big Lebowski, but none of the quotable writing is there...nor the enrapturing ebb of the storyline. Instead, I watched the entire film waiting for something to happen.
The movie is anticlimactic. The protagonist is killed without a battle scene. The sheriff, whom you are led to believe is going to save the day, retires quietly. Woody Harrelson's character is supposed to be some badass bounty hunter, but gets killed without any action. Office Space's "Milton" is killed as if his death is important, yet none of the characters' relationships with the bad deal or the events transpiring around the deal itself are ever explained. The sheriff talks about the compressor weapon in another context, but never puts two and two together (or he did, but never did anything with the information). The antagonist's acting is exactly the same as his role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona...though a purveyor of death instead of hippie sex and Pollock rip-offs. And perhaps the most daunting question in my head: Why does the serial killer have his hair cut like the Peter Pan guy?
The film has zero plot and doesn't even go so far as to make artistry of the violence like a Tarantino film. I just didn't get it, the hype, or the point.
The movie is anticlimactic. The protagonist is killed without a battle scene. The sheriff, whom you are led to believe is going to save the day, retires quietly. Woody Harrelson's character is supposed to be some badass bounty hunter, but gets killed without any action. Office Space's "Milton" is killed as if his death is important, yet none of the characters' relationships with the bad deal or the events transpiring around the deal itself are ever explained. The sheriff talks about the compressor weapon in another context, but never puts two and two together (or he did, but never did anything with the information). The antagonist's acting is exactly the same as his role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona...though a purveyor of death instead of hippie sex and Pollock rip-offs. And perhaps the most daunting question in my head: Why does the serial killer have his hair cut like the Peter Pan guy?
The film has zero plot and doesn't even go so far as to make artistry of the violence like a Tarantino film. I just didn't get it, the hype, or the point.