Merged: The Movies Thread

[itvnetop]

Originally Posted by skinsfanthru&thru

as far as "No Country for Old Men", I watched it yesterday and have absolutely no idea how that movie warranted as much hype as it did. The guy who played the assassin was cool, but the movie lacked anything remotely like a Best Picture worthy story and it's last 20 minutes was lackluster to say the least.

You're not alone... in fact most people were put off by the ending. But it's technically a near flawless film... it's going to be used over and over in film classes to dissect elements like cinematography, pacing and writing.

* Spoilers *

The movie works because it accomplishes the vision of the original book. NCFOM is a thematic movie, moreso than character-driven. The Coens have a knack for straying from traditional film structure- you didn't really have a "good guy protagonist" to root for, per se... there was Brolin's character, who played an average Joe- the audience wants him to get away with the money, but he still pulls off an unethical action (stealing money that's not his). Bardem's psycho character is definitely not the guy to root for, but he displays his own abstract sense of morality. And Tommy Lee Jones was the dude that verbalizes McCarthy's (the original book's author) overarching message- the world is becoming evil and good can no longer stop it... only fate can hope to stumble it...

Leaving out the death scenese for major characters is intentional to the overall theme. You're left wondering "wtf" during certain aftermath shots (and the ending) b/c the storytelling is so un-Hollywood. The movie's not wrapped up in a bowtie at the end and that surely pissed a bunch of people off.

/film geekness