No Country For Old Men...Especially Tommy Lee Jones

I was going to write a review for this three weeks ago when I saw it, but I have been a little bit off the grid, and for that I apologize. In lieu of actually writing a review, I will just say that I agree with much of what Nilay said. I have also not read the book, so it is difficult for me to really understand the point completely.

I will just tell you what I've been telling everyone about this movie:

The cat-and-mouse game that Bardem and Brolin play is great -- it shows that the Coens have not forgotten the art of suspense after making several screwball comedies over the past decade. But Tommy Lee Jones' character is irrelevant and his long-winded monologues are a drag on the movie, physically, as they are poorly delivered and obscure, and conceptually, as they try to place extra meaning on things that don't really need extra meaning to be interesting.

But despite TLJ, see the movie. The first hour and a half is exactly why we see movies on the big screen and in the dark. But walk out -- really -- at the point where you see a woman lounging by a motel pool. Get up, and leave the theater, and imagine any ending -- A Hollywood ending where the good guy wins; a dark ending where the villain kills everyone; a Pyhrric victory where the hero loses something precious; an ambiguous ending where you don't even know what happened; or even an ending where space aliens come out of the sky and zap all the characters.* Really, anything you imagine WILL BE BETTER THAN THE REAL ENDING!

*A nod, of course, to the Coen Bros. film, The Man Who Wasn't There.