No Country for Old Men

Earlier today, Big Texas and I went to a matinee of the latest movie by Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men. And you know what? I would've paid full price to see it. (Coming from me, that's saying something!)

Now, I'm a fan of other movies by the Coen brothers (Fargo, Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou, etc.), so I had an idea going into it that I'd like it. I had read a few reviews, and listened to Marin rave about it, so I started to get a little nervous that it would be hyped up too much, and that would skew my opinion. This was not the case, though.

I'm not going to go into the plot here. I've tried typing something down, just to get the basic idea across, but I felt like I couldn't do a good job at it. The trailer should give you gist of it.



I loved this movie. I think I loved everything about this movie. The sights, the sounds, the feelings. The actors were perfectly cast (the only exception may be that I did find it a little distracting to see Stephen Root in a more "serious" part), and did incredible jobs with their roles. From what I've gathered, the Coen brothers did a good job of keeping the script true to the novel from which it was adapted. It was violent and bloody and graphic, but not unnecessarily so. There was humor throughout, dark as it may have been (one peeve of mine was that the audience in the theater laughed at times that I thought were inappropriate, and then were silent when I was laughing. I obviously understood the movie more and therefore was smarter than everyone there.). This was also 2 of the most intense hours I've ever spent in a movie theater. I honestly would not be surprised to see this film nominated for multiple Academy Awards. And Anton Chigurh (played brilliantly by Javier Bardem) is one of, if not the, best villain, ever.


This definitely had a "Western" feel to it, which I appreciated. It mostly takes place and was filmed in Texas (though sadly, not in Austin), and all of the actors (who required one) had a great southern accent, even the Scottish Kelly Macdonald (another slightly distracting part was trying to figure out why I recognized her, then remembering that I saw her naked in Trainspotting. Yes, that actually wen through my head).

I feel like I cannot say enough about No Country for Old Men, but at the same time I don't want it to fall into the trap of being too hyped up for you out there. I don't want the three of you reading my blog to get such high hopes that can never be met, but at the same time I want to convey my feelings towards the movie. I'd have to think about the movies that I've seen recently, but off the top of my head, I can't think of a better movie from 2007. That's why it receives a whopping 6 Flenker Thumbs Up. Yes, it gets an extra thumb for being just an all-around bad ass movie. So go check it out, friendo.