So, 'No Country for Old Men'. Lauded...because?
Lots of blood would be too easy. Testosterone leadened? Too pat.
I assume it was meant to be a poetic treatise on the sad and hopeless fact of life that greed kills, and old age weakens the formerly strong and pure.
The movie had a lot of characters, but the only two actively engaged in living their lives were the scrappy idiot who found the money and wouldn't let go. And the killer who tracked him with grotesque mindfulness. The other characters moped around the periphery, wringing their hands, as we, the audience, waited to see who the killer would let live.
He let two of them live. One being Tommy Lee...who actually ends the movie by meandering through an endless dream he just had...about his father.
I would have liked the Brolin character to live too. So see, the movie could have ended on the up note that Bardem would be still chasing after that pesky Brolin, who was somehow getting the best of him.
There could have been a sequel--
Oh god. There still could be. Maybe what the Coen brothers have in mind is that Tommy Lee will suddenly get his balls back, and go after Bardem, and bring him down.
In the meantime we got an ugly story of violence aiming for depth and importance by using poetry.
The poetry lost.
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