Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review No Country fof Old Men

Bricktop: Disjointed or not the film was absolutely enthralling, absolutely entertaining, mesmerizing, kept everyone on the edge of their seat and apparently way, way, way over your head!
If I recall correctly the film is making hundreds of millions of dollars AND won several Oscars!
I saw the movie on the west coast in a huge, sold out theater two weeks after its opening!
Not ONE person left that theater during the movie to make a phone call or take a leak!
NOT ONE!
I notice these type things.
The ending made me question my initial level of admiration for the movie. That questioning only lasted UNTIL I saw it in a theater for the second time!
Then, I bought the movie in disc form and have watched it 10 or 12 more times!
It is STILL, entertaining, exciting, enthralling and mesmerizing!
Nothing you have said diminishes MY enjoyment of the movie one bit!
ExpatFromOk - hits the nail EXACTLY on the head - the movie was not about the welder or the hired killers or the crooked lawyers or mans inhumanity to man - it was about the damage done to law enforcement types by the carnage and depravity they deal with and witness DAILY!
The only minor, and I mean minor flaw I took note of in the movie was the Remington 700 VLS (Varmint Laminated Stock) in 25/06 that Llewelyn was chasing Antelope with. This model Rifle had not yet been invented by Remington back then!
I absolutely loved the movie and it is the only DVD I have purchased to date.
It sits next to my copy of "The Wild Bunch", "Oh Brother Where Art Thou", "True Grit" and just a couple other top notch movies.
If Bricktop knows of any other "disjointed" movies that are as entertaining, exciting, enthralling and mesmerizing as "No Country For Old Men" please clue me in as I don't want to miss them!
WheelChairBandit is also absolutely right on with his appraisal of the scene between Javier Bardem and the long time actor who played the gas station attendant (Gene Jones)!
ALONE, that scene was worth the price of admission!
I can only recall one, more intense and well acted scene played by two actors - and that was the scene in the movie "Heat" where Al Pacino's character invites the character played by Robert Deniro to sit down in a cafe for a cup of coffee!
The intensity and perfection of that scene (especially the dialogue and facial expressions shared between those wonderful actors) is what movies are all about.
Scenes like the two I described above make it ALMOST worth putting up with the majority of crap that Hollywood burps up and tries to pass off as entertainment!
Roger Ebert of long time renown as a movie critic on TV and for the Chicago Sun-Times paper (nationally syndicated!) called the movie (No Country For Old Men) "FLAWLESS"!
And I agree with him.
Its simply one of the top ten movies of ALL TIME (disjointed or NOT!)!
Tommy Lee Jones portrayal of the son of a Sheriff and the nephew of a Sheriff in the personna of Ed Tom Bell was also world class acting!
Long live the Coen brothers!
"Call IT, Friend-o"!!!
Did I mention the full house of movie goers I sat through over 2 hours of movie with, simply sat in stunned silence, awe and incredulity at this movies ending!
I mean it took a full minute for anyone to speak or stand up!
Yeah I got my monies worth there at that screening - and I gladly paid to see it again! AND, then I bought the DVD!
The character of Anton Chigurh will be remembered for generations and has already become a movie classic himself!
Somehow I don't think Bricktop is gonna be making any movies nearly as entertaining as this one or any that will make well over a half a billion dollars (by the time its run its course of cable rentals and TV showings is over) or that WILL win Oscars for several categories INCLUDING "Best Picture Of The Year"!
And the fact that the movie WON the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay emphatically wipes out ANY credibility of anyones argument that the film may have been "disjointed"!
In addition to the 4 (four) Oscars the film won it also won 2 (two) Golden Globe Awards and 3 (three) BAFTA Awards!
Bricktop, for you to call this movie "crap" is far beyond stupidity its more like idiocy!
Long live good movies!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Well, I finally read the book, and as luck would have it, drove right through Sanderson on my way back from New Mexico a couple of weeks back.

Took some pics, I'll post 'em here shortly.

I liked the movie better than the book, mostly on account of the movie was done so well. Turns out I've been to most places mentioned, although from the descriptions in the book I wonder if Mc Carthy has, or if he did, how long he spent there.

The most glaring that jumped out at me was when one of the characters stays at a motel "just west of San Antonio", and then goes out back to try out a gun "out on the prairie"

Birdwatcher

All,
Dark movie.
I must be alone when I say the film scared the hell out of me ??????????????
Deleted the next 10 lines of Paranoid Rambling.
The good thing to come from my watching the movie......
A new SP101 3"
Tom

VarmintGuy and Ironbender, in the book Moss used a semi custom
.270. After he was dead we learned he had been a sniper in Vietnam. "Best rifle shot I ever saw", said his Dad.
Bob

BOBBALEE: I am going to have to look that book up and make an exception and read a fiction novel!
I spend SO much time reading real life reality/Hunting magazines and Hunting books that I don't get to spend much time in the fiction aisle!
I watched the movie last night, again, and enjoyed it nearly as much as the first time I watched it!
I wonder if a person can wear out a DVD?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

TPearce: The film was a reminder to me of shocking lessons I learned as a rookie cop (and for the next 29 years!) in a major west coast crime ridden city!
I grew up in a home that was NEVER locked during the 1950's and early 1960's!
My, how things have changed!
Nowadays I lock my doors every time I go in and out of the house.
I have a sophisticated alarm system on my home and in some of my cars.
I have weaponery constantly available on an instants notice.
And I take hundreds of little precautions to try to insure my and my families safety!
It takes just such a minor effort to invoke these precautions and the rewards can be enormous!
I have seen so many people victimized in such horrific ways by sociopaths and ex-cons - people who just don't have any respect for lives (theirs or others!) or laws!
Having said that - there is a pretty small chance of any one person being murdered or in having an armed assault committed on them.
The best way to get ones self victimized in a life threatening manner is to live in or around a ghetto.
I don't live in a ghetto or near one, but my high-cap Glock is never far away!
Coming from the neighborhood that gave us Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer and the Wah Mee Massacre (13 innocent Asian folks executed by two young "Anton Chigurh" types, in Seattle 1980's era!) I am constantly wary!
On many ocassions I even walk around my home late at night with a 1,000,000 candle power spotlight shining it in every direction and checking every nook and cranny for anything amiss.
Call me paranoid if you want but the motto "better safe than sorry" comes into play these days.
And I feel my caution (paranoia?) is useful and beneficial.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I watched this movie twice this week, and have some questions,
hopefully not stupid:
I assume the hitman killed the wife, they dont show it, but
the movie does leave you hanging.

What happened to the hitman after he left the scene of the
car accident?

What happened to the suitcase of money? When Tommy Lee
enters the hotel room, Antone is definately inside the room
and does a good job of hiding.

Over all I enjoyed the movie, and will most likely buy
a copy to have at the house.

Just wanted to change the thread title back to the original to spite Crap-top!

Jericho: You ask some good questions - not great questions, but good ones, and I feel able to answer most of them as I have watched the movie many times - twice on the big screen and about 12 times from my DVD.

Question #1: Yes, the wife was killed by Anton Chigurh. She obviously would not allow the flip of a coin to determine her fate, she forced his hand in that - evidence of this was his checking for blood on his feet as he exited the front door of her house.
You weren't "left hanging" by the director of the movie by this - you were smashed with an overwhelming desire to know what happened to this innocent person!

Question #2: Anton Chigurh hobbled off into the oblivion that psycopathic killers live in. Think he was cold blooded - he does NOT hold a candle to real life killers like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacey, Jeffrey Dahmer etc etc etc.

Question #3: The suitcase of money had been "hidden" again by Llewelyn Moss in the air conditioning vent and had not been found by the Mexicans who found out where Llewelyn would be. They got in a shoot out with Llewelyn killing him and ran off "empty handed" as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell came driving into the motel! The initial investigation at that scene revealed no money being found.
Then Sheriff Ed Tom Bell went back to the scene maybe to look for the money again and Anton Chigurh had just recovered the money himself - witness the air vent on the floor NOW and the freshly removed screws laying there with the dust of the vent duct being disturbed like in the first motel incident.

Question #4: Anton Chigurh did probably hide himself under a bed or inside a curtain not knowing how many people may have been inside or outside the motel room. Anton Chigurh left with the money choosing for what ever reasons not to shoot it out with the Sheriff.
The great question that I only hear a few folks asking about this movie is - what was this movie about???
Its not a movie about the nice guy Llewelyn Moss finally getting a break in life and that break turning horribly wrong, its not a movie about good vs. evil (that was covered back in the 1920's and dozens of times every year since!), its not about trying to look into the heart of evil (Anton Chigurh), the "message" is about the final scene of the movie - its about the effects of evil that knows no bounds, on good men like Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and his wheelchair ridden and reclusive, ex-law enforcement Uncle Ellis (played splendidly though briefly by veteran actor Barry Corbin!).
You will get more out of the movie each time you see the movie.
I believe it was the early Roman Philospher Cicero who was quoted as saying "search, is the ultimate mystery"!
And this movie is about searching from beginning to end - following blood trails and following running people and following radio signals, and searching for good and the like. Even searching, of a sort in ones dreams, at the end of the movie where Ed Tom Bell relays to his wife how his dream had him following (searching for) his father in a blizzard.
Enthralling, mesmerizing and baffling at times this movie IS!
Fantastic entertainment to say the least.
Speaking of "questions" I tried to keep track of the number of people Anton Chigurh kills in the movie - I think its 14 or 15. It depends on, if Anton Chigurh does kill (offscreen) the aid to the crooked lawyer that Anton DOES kill - remember the aid asks Anton "are you going to kill me" and Anton looks at him with emotionless tone of voice and emotionless facial expression and answers him "it depends on if you can see me"?
And of course Anton can be seen by the aid and I am sure ended up dead right there!
15 is my total - count for yourself next time you see the movie.
Yes buy the movie and watch it at your convenience.
Hope this helps.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

It's about the realization that violence has not just come to the Border in particular or man in general, but that it has always been there and that age rather than an escalation in that violence, is what hampers the Sheriff's ability to deal with that violence.

Or maybe it's about something else entirely.