No Country For Old Men
Here is number three. The (imo only) completely overated favourite for Best Film at the OSCARS.
No Country For Old Men
Starring - Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Barden, Josh Brolin, Kelly McDonald, Woody Harrelson
Directed by Joel Cohen & Ethen Cohen
When Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) picks up a suitcase full of money, little does he know he will be hunted down for it by a range of individuals, particularly the twisted killer Anton Chigurh. (Javier Barnden) Also on the case is small town cop Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) who seems to be of the view everything was better and less violent in the 'good old days.'
Chigurh is a mysterious killer who on occasion gives his potential victim a coin flip chance to stay alive, as we observe through one service station scene he does not kill the person if they win the coin flip. He tries to chase down Moss as Bell tries to chase him down. At one stage we also get the intervention of Carson Wells (Harrelson) who tries to get Moss's daughter out of the way (Kelly McDonald) but Wells, who you at first feel may be a signifcant character, meet Chigurh and dies so quickly I was unsure of what the true point of him being there was.
The film is slow for the most part, it takes a while to get going and on occasion you think it does, it gets dragged down in a series of conveluted sub-plots, like the sotry of the cop, what the CIA are doing to try and help, The pointless Wells interlude. If it had been more of the chase between Moss and Chiguh this may have been better, but it tried to be too clever and failed as a result.
There is plenty of violence for those who like that and it seems clear from trying to bring all th angles they did in they tried to make this film this years 'The Departed' which brilliantly brought together a series of angles on the same set of circumtances. This is no Departed, the performances do not hold anywhere like the interest, I found myself bored through most of the film and dissappointed as the film went off on pointless tangents everytime it seemed to pick up a little.
For me the only performance of note was that of Barnden as the killer, but half way through the film they decided to get to to talk and have a personality of a sort, killing the mystery which was one of the positives of the first part of the film. The ending is also very poor, Overall this was a huge dissappointment.
THE MOON OF LIBERTY VERDICT - RATING 'D' - Very little to save this film, parts of Barnden's performance perhaps, but slow, dull, a very weak ending, some pointless characters that could have made an impact. Apparently this may win best film at the OSCAR's, I have no idea why, it won't be in my award nominations later this month.
