No Country for Old Men
Ever since watching “The Ramen Girl” recently, I have developed some sort of fear of bad movies. The kind of bad teenage movie that I used to watch back then when I was 14 years old, ditched school almost every day and tickets to the movie theaters were so cheap that I easily got my 6th stamp to get to go to the cinema a 7th time for free within something like a month. Most of what I watched at the time wasn’t exactly bad though, just comparably less good.
I would most likely have hated “The Ramen Girl” at that time already. But I would never, ever have liked “No Country for Old Men”. I can see two situations in which you can like a film such as this one: You like violence, or you like screwed up stories. In the first case, you must be somewhat perverted and in the second case you are even worse because you want to be screwed up. Oh, there might be a third case: You are a fan of the Coen brothers and like their crude yet intellectual style. As for me, I probably fall into the third case and that is more or less the only reason why I found the film to be memorable. I am extremely intrigued by the scene involving the wife who appears so incredibly dumb (“Llewelyn~!”) at first and then ended up getting the perhaps most meaningful line in the film. Typical for the Coen brothers, there also were some wonderfully funny scenes, like the one in which Llewelyn managed to get through the American-Mexican border solely based on his participation in the Vietnam war.
I thought Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin well-cast in the film but nothing is comparable to Javier Bardem’s crazy man looks. He is the one who turns the film into something special. Nevertheless, I thought the characters were lacking something, and preferred even “Burn after reading” over this film. It’s again a movie without Frances McDormand after all!
At the end of the day, I don’t think this was the Coen brothers’ best movie, and it surprises me that it was this film which garnered all the attention and love of both the critics and the people. I might be weird like that, but that’s the impression I got. What do you think?
I have to say I liked it very much (like you say, Bardem is awesome in this one), but somehow I managed to watch it without realising it was a Coen brothers movie! Yes, I’m weird like that. Then again, I guess I’m screwed up so I didn’t need the Coen angle?
i just remember this as an absolutely exhilarating, fucking expert thriller. i guess this was memorable! in the sense that i can perfectly recall being on the edge of my seat the entire time. this is obviously nothing like “A Serious Man”, say, but in certain aspects not entirely different to the sense of violence in “Fargo”. Thank god the Coens are perfectly capable and willing to meander into different modes (bring back Frances for the next one, though!). Also, Cormack McCarthy + Coens = congenial as fuck.
Hahahahaha! I should have known that you guys liked it! You are all screwed up indeed, and it’s not like I don’t see where the strengths of the movie are (I found it super suspenseful too!), I just didn’t the story itself as much, I suppose? In that respect, I am too girlish and don’t want main characters to die. :D
“Fargo” was very on-the-top absurd and had these dumb and funny character with hilarious antics very similar to “Burn after reading” and “The Big Lebowski”, so I enjoyed the absurdity and the violence that came with it. “No Country for Old Men” felt more… serious in some sense?
Also I am probably going to mourn the lack of Frances McDormand in every movie she is not in. XXXD