No Country For Old Men

This is NOT your normal "Best Picture" winner. This is not even your normal movie. The characters are deeply disturbing. It is a brilliant piece of work. But, like other work of the Coen brothers, it is not for everyone. This movie will most likely leave you with more questions than it answers. If it does, then it has succeeding in defending itself. What other movie from last year are people still talking about?

Has crime and criminals changed so much over the years that there is no place any more for the techniques and attitudes of old-time law enforcement officers? This is just one of the questions posed by the Coens in this script.

When I said the characters were disturbing, I meant all of them. The good guys AND the bad guys here are all deeply flawed individuals. There are no white-hat-wearing heroes. The villain is as dark and fearsome as they come.

Javier Bardem truly earned his Best Supporting Actor Oscar here. Cold-blooded is the only way I can think to describe his character. The Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) trying to figure out what is going on in his county calls Bardem's character a ghost. But the string of dead people across West Texas is real enough. The paradox here is the common sense of the "old men" are not shared by the new techniques of the new cops. Neither alone is enough to catch or hold the bad guy. He is too smart and too fast.

Josh Brolin is perfect as the Viet Nam vet living out his days in rural Texas. His instincts and skills keep him alive, and few steps ahead of the bad guy. But, it's not just the bad guy who is after him. No spoilers here.

I'm guessing you will not be happy with the ending of this movie. It is abrupt and at a very odd place. I even fast-forwarded through the credits to see if there was more movie after them. Nada. And this is where the real questions may begin for you as they did for me. What just happened? What does that mean? Can they really leave it at that?

Watch this movie with someone who does not need to tidy ending.