"No Country For Old Men" took away many awards at the past Academy Awards. Everybody and their mother had seen it so I decided to take a peek at this highly acclaimed movie.
"No Country" was adapted from a novel written in 2005. The movie takes place in Texas in 1980 along the US/Mexico border. Violence is increasingly on the rise or so I think sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) says. Can't tell, he mumbles through the whole movie. He starts the movie off by arresting a hit man Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who then escapes from prison. All while this is going on, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is out hunting when he comes across the scene of a deadly wild-west type shootout. Except isntead of finding pistols and the like he finds high-powered assault rifles as well as a large amount of drugs. He finds one man alive (who is as good as dead) and asks him where the "last man standing" was. The man only speaks Spanish and asks for water.
A short distance from the massacre Moss finds a satchel filled with cash. He steals the money and leaves the man to die. Later he ends up returning to the scene of the massacre with a gallon of water. Big mistake. Some Mexicans come back for their cash and take some shots at Moss only to have Moss escape. Moss returns home and puts his wife on a bus for Odessa, Texas where he believes she will be safe. Then Chigurh is hired as a hitman to get the money back. Only, he kills the people that hire him and goes after the money for himself. And that's the basic idea of "No Country".
First order of business, why was this as highly acclaimed as it was? Yeah the acting was decent. Javier Bardem deserved the best supporting actor award. The cinematography was great. The story got old, quick. Seems Tommy Lee Jones prefers to talk over solving murders. Not only does he waste about half the movie talking about nonsense that nobody cares about, you can hardly understand a word he says. Please Mr. Jones, I know you are old but please speak up so we can at least hear your boring dialogue.
The action was top notch though. Those scenes kept me on the edge of my seat. One big problem I had with the movie was that it was stuck on a loop. Here's the story as I see it. Man steals money. Man hides money. Man hunts man who hides money. Man hunting man kills people for no reason. Man hiding money escapes. Man chasing man hunting man fills 10 minutes with meaningless dialogue. Man hides money. Man hunts man who hides money. Man hunting man kills people for no reason. Man hiding money escapes. Man chasing man hunting man fills 10 minutes with meaningless dialogue. Alright you get the point. I felt the movie could have been cut down to less than 2 hours without all of Jone's preachy dialogue about whatever it was he was trying to get across. Not really sure what that was though because I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND HIM!!!
Another gripe I have with this movie is the ending. What, did they run out of film while taping? I thought I fell asleep while Jones rambled on and woke up during the credits. Nope, the movie just cut off out of nowhere. Where's the resolution? Are you kidding me, Moss gets killed by someone who's part in the movie was meaningless unless you include the fact that he kills Moss. The main baddie doesn't even get the satisfaction of killing him? Give me a break. I will never put stock into what the Academy has to say about film. They are CLUELESS. I'll give it a generous (out of 5):
