No Country for Old Men (2007, USA)

I don't know if I'm surprised to find that the majority of the feedback I've heard from people who have seen No Country for Old Men has been negative. I saw the film on opening day at a tiny theater in Tempe, Arizona, and although it was only 2:30 in the afternoon, the room was packed. There was a whole lot of grumbling after the screen finally went black and the credits rolled - the woman next to me complained to her husband, "I didn't think very much of that." In the week since, I think I only know one person besides myself who DID think much of the movie, and like me, he's a Cormac McCarthy junkie.

Sure, I'm biased - the book was one of my favorite reads in the past few years, and I generally love the Coen brothers. Tommy Lee Jones is a natural Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, and Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem were both inspired picks. The cinematography is excellent and the sound is great (the Coens decided to do without backing music for the bulk of the film). The first two-thirds of the movie come nearly verbatim from the book, while the final third collapses events somewhat in order to finish at just a bit over two hours. But the feeling of the book remains at the end as Ed Tom tries to grapple with the new kind of evil that has invaded his territory.

So what exactly is the problem here? Why are audiences turning away - particularly audiences who waited in line to buy tickets for the film while it was still in limited release? I think that No Country is both more brutal and more opaque than anything the Coens have done in a while - the closest spiritual partner I can think of might be Barton Fink. Critics loved that, too (mostly), but you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of die-hard Fink fans out there. It's a grim film, and No Country is equally so, if not more. Frankly, I loved it. I thought it was a great take on a great story. I am happy to see that after a few years in the screwball ghetto, the Coens are back to making films that I actually want to see.

However, if you think No Country is a hard watch, wait just a couple of years - I read the other day that someone is going to make a film version of McCarthy's The Road. The producers are going to have to set up a crisis hotline when that one comes out.