No Country for Old Men

That's what I call courage — making a whole movie with no music. What's interesting is that I didn't mind at all. Otherwise, the Coen brothers play a classic game of cat and mouse, arming the cat with an air pistol (amazing idea by the way) and the mouse with a shotgun loaded with tent stakes. The atmosphere is built brilliantly, and the insertion of the philosophizing Tommy Lee Jones gives the story the right flair. The Oscars for Bardem and both directors are definitely deserved. I'm a little surprised about the award for best motion picture, but it's good that the golden statuette was given to this type of movie again. A slightly weak five stars. (02/26/2008)

I don't mind anything about this film, not even the fact that the Coens’ gave more space to Cormac McCarthy's style than to their own. Their contribution to the excellent template is, above all, precise technical packaging and the traditionally great choice of types. I will never forget Bardem's evil eyes, Brolin's mustache and appearance evoke the tough guys of the 1970s, and Tommy Lee Jones is just as scared and old-fashioned as Sheriff Bell is supposed to be. The broken structure of the story, the missing threads of motivation and the denial of violence as cool props - No Country for Old Men is not a matter of great exaggeration, but rather of chilling black humor. It is a portrait of a world that used to have its protectors of good and its firm laws, but now there is nothing left. Perhaps just the coin from 1958. Call it! The Oscar did not miss the mark this year. (03/17/2008)

It’s a cheesy thing to say, but... the book is better. Considerably better. A return to the peak of their skills for the brotherly directing duo? Not at all. More like remaining deep in the shadow not only of McCarthy’s book, but mainly in their own shadow, which is that much worse. Which is a little paradoxical in view of the fact that from the very beginning this was an almost slavish word for word adaptation without any ideas or invention of their own. The Coens are stagnating in terms of creative talent. The whole movie is terribly “readable". If you know their movies, then you will know exactly when to expect what shot, when the camera won’t move, when the next “surprising" cut to another scene will come. What makes it even worse is that the opportunity that Cormac McCarthy offered them in the shape of his existentially moralizing modern day western might not come along again. I can’t deny the perfect atmosphere evocation by means of long takes and perfectly exploited silence. Also they managed to choose an excellent cast. But the mistake that drags it to the bottom of mediocrity is the absolute neglection of the character of Sheriff Bell. His tired old-man’s puttering from one place to the next seems superfluous in this movie. While in the book his storyline full of moral dilemmas over the state of society full of paradoxes is the best part. And then there is the fact that the sudden cut at the end doesn’t fit at all - ok, it’s the same as in the book, but without what preceded it. Tommy Lee Jones’ role is simply worthless. Does what I wrote above that this is a bad movie? No way, but it isn’t really good either. (01/20/2008)

I don't give a damn about journalistic glorification, this film is strong in the details, but unremarkable as a whole. Let's shed a tear at the memory of the brilliant Fargo, the Coens have been getting a bit stale in the last four years. I missed a twist (semi-pathologically spoken moralities don't make a film witty), I missed the Coens' greatest weapon, which has always been a strong story, I missed their typical sense of absurdity and exaggeration, I missed quite a lot here. Bardem's assassin, the character that carries the whole, is neither substantial nor interesting enough that I would already, as overseas publicists are doing with gusto, place this essentially very simple film alongside famous classics. I expect something more from an "unforgettable" film than a banal chase and a one-man-show of one violent mind. Sorry, guys. I attribute the mostly ecstatic enthusiasm for this piece to the well-deserved reputation the talented brothers have earned over their career. (01/09/2008)

The ecstatic cries of American critics, confirmed by the Oscar award, about extreme violence are rather pious pleas of all those who have read McCarthy’s novel and have seen something made by the Coen brothers before. The film is a perfect confirmation that the writers are slowly but surely becoming as arid as the desert on the Texas-Mexico border. This stuff was made for them, but a slave adaptation doesn't make a good movie, and if they didn't have those amazing actors (after American Gangster, Josh Brolin wins again), their adaptation would have absolutely lost its meaning. 70% (rounded down due to expectations). (01/04/2008)