(Untitled)
The worst movie of 2007.
Hi. I just watched No Country For Old Men, and then promptly took a shard of glass to my retinas. So if I make a spelling mistake, you'll have to bear with me. I can't see. Spoilers for the rest of the entry.
( Read more... )
Hi. I just watched No Country For Old Men, and then promptly took a shard of glass to my retinas. So if I make a spelling mistake, you'll have to bear with me. I can't see. Spoilers for the rest of the entry.
( Read more... )
We know enough. We know that Llewelyn and his wife are dead (the killer checks his feet for bloody footprints as he exits her house (remember the killer protecting his feet when he killed Woody)). (And we don't know if Llewelyn went for the pool slut. We also don't know if that's Llewelyn's body, the pool slut's body, or someone else's floating in the pool.) I think the killer did get the money. The vent was open and either he or the Mexicans went back for it after the cops left.
The story is anti-Western and anti-Hollywood. It's meant to give us a story that we don't typically hear. That is, we usually hear the story about the plucky loner who goes against the odds, bucking the system and standing up to the bad guys, and who perseveres. We get closure because he wins in the end, and his plucky nature makes him an American hero.
But the movie refuses that. In fact, after Llewelyn dies, the movies deliberately shows us that the story isn't about him (the standard Western rebel), but about the overwhelmed sheriff. It's about how the sheriff resigns himself to inadequacy and impotence. The sheriff was always two steps behind, unlike the standard smart and good cop in any Western, or in any movie. The sheriff is the old man referred to in the title, and this country is not for him; this country is for the adaptable and amoral killer who contracts out to multinational drug cartels.
Reply
Reply
The Coens fucked with us (and it's the one part of the film that didn't work). They cut between The Killer, who had already been in the room, and who had already had left, and The Sheriff, who was imagining what The Killer did.
Supposedly, the book makes that clear, but that's one part of their movie that is NOT clear. (For example, if The Sheriff was imagining what The Killer did, then why didn't the filmmakers show us a shadowy figure? The Sheriff never knew what The Killer looked like.)
The Killer killed the wife because he promised Llewelyn he would. Despite everything, The Killer had his own intense personal ethics and he was definitely a man of his word. She didn't know anything about the money and he knew that.
Reply
They did show a shadowy figure, and I thought that's why he wasn't imagining it but the killer was just hiding.
And I think the killer didn't know if she knew. It didn't matter in regards to her life, but he was still looking for the money.
Reply
has the money already? Or if he's even a little bit surprised by her not knowing.
WTF
Reply
I'd rather see them in the theater again, but at $12 a pop, there's no way in hell.
Reply
Part 1.
Part 2.
Reply
Instead they trick (and it is trickery) the viewer into liking Brolin's character to ultimately reveal the movie is about the sheriff's inability to deal with the sitch given his age. That's a boring plot!
Maybe I missed something throughout the sequence of events, I don't know. But what this movie basically said to me, is that in the end, none of these characters fucking mattered and we're going to kill them off because we want to make something that doesn't follow the movie mold. Anti-Hollywood can be just as bad as Hollywood, and in this case I consider this movie to be one of the worst Anti movies ever.
Reply
But the film wouldn't have worked if it was structured as you said. It IS a trick. They want us to identify, at first, with Llewelyn more than the Sheriff. He's the proxy for the All-American Western Hero, and he is one of the archetypes that they (the Coens and McCarthy) want to rip apart.
If you know that Llewelyn isn't the "real" focus, then you won't be as invested in his fate. You need to be as invested in Llewelyn as the Sheriff is, so when Llewelyn dies you feel the same frustration and inadequacy as the Sheriff, and that allows you to understand why the Sheriff gives up.
Reply
They withheld a little too much for me, which in turn makes not give a shit about Tommy Lee's character at the end of the movie.
I don't like tricks. Tricks are for kids.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment