No Country for Old Men

I have a final in less than 48 hours so what better to do than write a movie review? This one will be quick.

No Country for Old Men was on cable this weekend. I absolutely hated it when I saw it in the theaters. Since it won several Oscars, and has higher than 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought I’d watch it again to see if I still felt the same way. (Yes, I’m avoiding my studies.)

This time, knowing what happens, my reaction wasn’t quite as visceral. Still, I think the movie insults its viewers. That is my ultimate beef with the movie.

** SPOILER WARNING **

I love the Coen brothers. Almost every movie of theirs I have enjoyed. But there is one simple thing any story does: it follows its characters. Llywellyn’s death is the insult, in my opinion. Yes, it is cheap that he dies at the hands of the drug runners, rather than by the hand of Chigurh. A typical movie would have a climactic shootout between the protagonist and the antagonist. The Coen brothers don’t do typical so there is no expectation of that. I’m not happy about who killed him but I can deal with the “random nature” theme of the movie.

What I absolutely hate is that Llewelyn dies off camera. The viewer just wants to follow the character – in whom the viewer has invested the previous three-fourths of the film – to his end be it good or bad. A massive shootout isn’t necessary. If the directors don’t care enough to allow the viewer the primal resolve of the character’s last minutes, why should the viewer care about any other characters?

Up until that point of the movie, I would have said that this was my favorite Coen brother’s movie. The cinematography was incredible. The feel of the time was great (something that the Coen brother’s always do well). But, but, but… let the viewer follow the protaganist to his end.

UPDATE (2008-12-12): A friend was bothered by the exact same scene that I was bothered by. His belief – after watching the movie a second time – was that the main character of the movie was actually Tommy Lee Jones’ sheriff. That is certainly possible (the wikipedia entry says this to be true for the book) but the construction of the movie makes it near impossible to grok that the Llewellyn is NOT the main character. Maybe because the scenes for him are more typical for a movie and the sheriff’s scenes (more introspection) are more typical for a book.