2007: No Country for Old Men

A man happens upon the scene of a drug deal gone wrong, consisting of several dead bodies, a truck full of heroin, and a suitcase full of two million dollars.  He decides to take the cash, but unfortunately, someone wants it back.  And that someone just happens to be a really creepy psychopath armed with a bullet-less but deadly gun.

I'm sorry to have to say it, but I absolutely hate this movie.  It's mostly a string of pointless violence, and I just don't find those kinds of films entertaining.  Javier Bardem does a really good job of being creepy, but his character is so profoundly disturbing that it's difficult to appreciate his talent.  I do have to say that Tommy Lee Jones has a really amazing speaking voice.  During his scenes, I could tune out the disturbing, pointless plot and focus on how awesome his voice sounds.  And yes, this movie is so awful that the only positive aspect is Tommy Lee Jones's voice.

Tempting as it would be to say that I merely dislike the genre - as I said for The Silence of the Lambs - I don't think that's true.  I do enjoy suspense thrillers, most of the time.  But not when they consist of random scenes of a creepy guy killing nice people with an air gun thing.  Those scenes don't make up the entire film, but there are way more of them than necessary.  At least during the scenes with Tommy Lee Jones, who plays a sheriff who's trying to catch Javier Bardem's character, the audience can relax a little because they know no one is going to be brutally murdered.  But even those scenes are depressing because he's basically talking about how the world is going down the drain and we're all doomed.  That part reminds me a lot of Cavalcade (the Best Picture Winner of 1932/33).  Come to think of it, this movie is pretty much a combination of Cavalcade and the end of  The Departed, neither of which, as you may recall, I thought very highly of.  "The world's going to hell, and let's kill a bunch of people randomly."

I will never understand why this movie won 4 Academy Awards, is in the top 250 on imdb, or has been lauded as the Coen brothers' best film.  This is the second time I've seen it, and I hope that I will never have to sit through it again.

Next: Slumdog Millionaire