Sunday, November 18, 2007

No Country For Old Men is not the feel-good movie of the year

As of this writing, No Country for Old Men is sitting at 96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.9 on IMDB. It is both well-made and memorable, but is not exactly enjoyable to watch. I had to sit separately from my friend Mrs. S (it was a free screening) and I kept wondering whether she liked the movie. In her words: "I feel like I've been pummeled."

The movie is so well-edited that I was able to follow it despite its having very little dialogue. Also, you won't see a more compelling bad guy than Chigurh, who looked like a combination of Jake Gyllenhaal and Angus Scrimm. Mrs. S guessed that had Chigurh not been evil and not had that creepy haircut he might have been cute, and sure enough, IMDB reveals that Javier Bardem has had to work at not being typecast as a hunk.

The reviews are right: it is a good, maybe great movie, but the 96% fresh rating does not tell the whole story, which is that a great number of people will not like it. You've been warned.

Another complaint: the phlegmy older gentleman to my left with the nubby sweater wouldn't keep his arm out of my area! So I shot him in the forehead with a cattle slaughter gun.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

She said something exciting had happened during the night, and here it is!!