No Country for Old Men
This entry was posted on 3/24/2008 6:59 PM and is filed under Movie Reviews.
To the few of you that actually read these, sorry for the long delay between blog entries. I have a VERY good excuse. I've been busy getting engaged to the most wonderful woman. Words can't even describe how happy I am. There you have it... now on to the review for 'No Country for Old Men.'
This movie won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Picture, so I had to give it a shot. In the past I've been apprehensive of what the Academy picks for Best Picture. Heck, I'm still ticked off at them for Picking 'Driving Miss Daisy' over 'Dead Poet's Society.' I mean, c'mon! You know they picked DMD because Jessica Tandy was old and they wanted to give her an award for her lifetime of work (see Jack Palance for City Slickers as exhibit B ). It was either that or they couldn't bear to give it to a movie starring a man who used to be Mork from Ork.
The movie takes place in the 1980's and revolves around a Vietnam vet played by Josh Brolin. While out hunting in the middle of nowhere in west Texas he stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad where everyone has shot everyone else. He finds a satchel full of a million plus in cold hard cash. Of course, he takes it. It's at this point that the 'bad guys' send a hit man in to get the money back. Most of the rest of the movie is a cat and mouse game with the hitman who is played exceedingly well by Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin's character who has the money, and an old time Sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones who is always one step behind. This guy seriously had me convinced that he was a bad mofo. Javier puts in the kind of performance that reminds you of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. He's a guy that is smart and doesn't really look too scary, but you still want to crawl under your bed and wait for the boogey man to leave. Freddy has his finger knives, Jason has his machete and this boogeyman carries around a compressed air tank attached to a device used to kill livestock. It's basically a rod that shoots out with tremendous force and retracts back when activated. He also carries around a huge rifle with a silencer on the end of it that looks like a can of soup with the label removed, i.e. probably homemade. The movie contiues with several shootouts, close calls and many collateral deaths along the way. Of course, I won't give away the ending.
Overall this is a great movie. At the very least, watch it to see Javier Bardem's work. The only part of the movie I didn't like was the ending. I didn't quite understand it. I'll definitely watch the movie again to try and figure it out. That's the Coen Brothers for you. Make it good, yet odd so that you have to watch it again to catch everything!
