No Country for Old Men

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  July 27, 2012 at 3:35 AM, Jeff Cantrell said ...

  If you didn't like this movie because of the ending, then you are obviously ignorant to the message it subtly conveys

  Ed Tom (tommy lee jones) is one step behind the whole movie and the scene where you dont see josh brolin die is there to illustrate his decaying sense of worth in a world moving too fast and too apathetic for him (ergo no country for old men) Josh Brolin couldve kept running, but then there would be no sense of closure to the message omnipresent in the movie, greed is THE driving force of motive but as this world ages its apathy grows and crime no longer needs a motive (Anton Chigurh). Llewylen takes the money bc he sees it as an easy way out, but as it says on the cover "there are no clean getaways" and in a world of people looking for an easy way out of their miserable, boring lives, people are capable of anything. It is not just no country for old men, It is no country for anybody (as corey said misdirected). Ed tom retires and has the dream where his father gives him money but he loses it (a quite litteral allusion to the events in the story) and the other, more metaphorical one where his father rides ahead in "all that dark and all that cold" to light a fire for him when he gets there, to light the path. But then he wakes up, and with this reality everything seems hopeless. MOVIES ARENT ALL ABOUT PLEASING YOU AS A VIEWER, QUIT BEING NARCISSISTIC AND HAVE SOME FUCKING INSIGHT INSTEAD OF TRYING TO JERK YOURSELF OFF. thank you....

• June 10, 2012 at 2:35 AM, said ...

  carlyle literaly less than 30 mins cant ruin this because the climax is slow and somber like the movie i  agree wit u guys a lot accept this review sorry Better Than Sex because its just perfectly made and its number 14 on my top 20 movies ever made

   

  
  
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  August 23, 2011 at 11:39 AM, said ...

  I'm terribly sorry to say this guys, but this is the worst review you've done. I mean, I understand your feelings towards this movie, don't get me wrong. It's just that your final opinions feel convoluted and unclear.

   

  For me, I saw the movie a week ago and the climax didn't bother me at all, and I hadn't even read the book yet at that time. It may be obvious, but it's one of things that you have to at least think retrospectively about, and whether you liked that part of the movie and/or book or not, you kinda see why both Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers went the way they went with that last chunk of the story.

• July 25, 2011 at 2:00 AM, said ...

  I don't get how people can be so enthusiastic about this movie. The messages it offers--"there are some f***ed up people in this world" and "justice is not assured by any means"--should not be new information. I can't get behind a movie just for saying those bland and obvious things. On the level of the action and plot and acting...OK it was a good suspense film. But with my expectations jacked up from my love of The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, I tell you I was disappointed. Fargo also leaves some Coen Brothers fans like me cold, as well (no pun intended).

  
  
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  December 30, 2010 at 8:52 AM, said ...

  fuck the speculation of the fucking ending and fuck the character ark conclusion and enjoy this fucking masterpiece!!!!!!

• December 30, 2010 at 8:48 AM, said ...

  this is one of my 20 top all time favourite films ever!!!! period fuck the speculation about the ending, this is a fucking masterpiece!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  
  
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  October 22, 2010 at 8:27 PM, said ...

  I've got to say, this is one of my favourite films ever, after one flew over the cuckoos nest and pulp fiction, it's also the first Coen Brothers film I've ever seen (Fargo's lying around somewhere in the DVD shelf but I've never seen it), and despite some of the narrative being a little hard to follow, and the ending being enormously anti-climactic, I love it, I watched it twice in two days and i'd gladly watch it a hundred more, the rest of the film is so good to the point that the ending doesn't matter, and you have to admit that Tommy Lee's speech in the end, even though you really have to think about it to understand what it means, I would say that it is almost as good as Joules' speech at the end of Pulp Fiction, and every actor in the film, plays their part fantastically.

• June 26, 2010 at 11:43 PM, Richard Dempsey said ...

  My least favorite ending is A.I (Artifical Intelligence.) where they leave you hanging for a fairy tale ending, and they say- nope we're gonna make the robot get frozen and everybody dies so he can't love anyone. This climax was gone and I told myself oh god. IF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS MOVIE YOU KNOW WHO COMES! I only wanted to see how he died because I loved everytime Javier Barnett killed someone, so why can't they just show that. Other than that it's a flawless film, IT'S VERY CLOSE TO BETTER THAN SEX!!!! I CAN"T TELL YOU MY RATING. ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT I HIGHLY RECOMEND IT!!!!!!!!!! KARLYE, USUALLY I AGREE WITH YOU BUT YOU WILL SEE THIS FILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  
  
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  December 10, 2009 at 6:37 AM, Michael Farfaglia said ...

  I hate to admit this, but I agree with Carlysle. I watched this as a rental and I frankly can't recomend it to anyone. I mean really, how could I tell someone they need to go watch a DVD but not watch the ending? Also, a more aggressive editor would have paired this down and made it flow better from one scene to another. This is because there are several scenes that, while well acted and directed, are neither interesting or exciting. The scenes where Tommy Lee Jones is talking to his wife, the crippled old man and his deputy just don't work for me. Maybe it's because I saw the extended version but it seemed liked they wanted keep too much from the book that doesn't work in the movie. The book isn't sacred, what doesn't work needs to be kept out of the final cut of the film. Still, I loved MOST of this film. But its superb acting, direction and camera work can't compensate for the ending.

• September 28, 2009 at 2:26 PM, Joseph Hogan said ...

  I think alot of people may have missed out on one of Tommy's Lines earlier in the movie that can help to explain why it ends the way it does. "Even in the contest between man and steer the issue is not certain" That line for me made the climax that much more effective. It is possible that people have become expectant on endings that are certain. How often in life do you know how everything is gonna work out.(even for the bad guy)

  
  
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  September 09, 2009 at 3:15 AM, Tyler Hale said ...

  I give it BETTER THAN SEX!! I think the climax worked and I wasn't bothered by it. I LOVE watching this movie! Read the book if you all get a chance because it is just as good!

• July 12, 2009 at 4:10 AM, MattPayneMPA said ...

  One of my all time favorite films.Simple story,superb acting by all the cast.Easily earned its four oscars!Javier Bardem plays the best villian since Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector.Bravo!!BETTER THAN SEX!!

  
  
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  December 10, 2008 at 5:02 AM, ZPowers said ...

  I think the climax works. Josh Brolin happens to not be the main character, and the only thing that isn't shown is a short gunfight between him and some Mexicans (in fact, possibly just them chasing him into a room and shooting him dead). If you pay attention, Bardem didn't kill Brolin, hence his being there way later. The main character of this movie IS Tommy Lee Jones, and his arc is shown in full (it's not a guns-a-blazing kind of story, it's a man coming to face the fact that the evil in this world will always outweigh the good. Brolin and Bardem are examples of this to Jones, who is utterly ineffectual in the face of Bardem). The climax is the last scene, where Jones has retired and has a dream of a light fading into the dark. Brolin's death is just a plot point. It's almost meant to be trivialized. That sort of thing happens all the time. The evil tosses away the good without ceremony or flare.

• December 04, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Aimal Khan said ...

  i agree with you guys. up until the last 15 minutes this movie was dangerouly becomming close to one of my favrite films of all time. but the climax fucked it up for me.

  
  
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  October 15, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Nick Miracle said ...

  on my second viewing, it was much better. Still the same problems but i could handle them easier. Full price.

• October 05, 2008 at 2:47 AM, Nick Miracle said ...

  Good cast, good acting, good story, nice "action" scenes, ending wasn't as bad as I had heard (maybe i was prepared for it), it was also kind of interresting to see a movie without any musical score. could have been cut down a bit, dragged for me at some points, lack of character developement Low Matinee

  
  
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  September 12, 2008 at 6:32 AM, Zgamer said ...

  Dude, I don't understand why everyone hates the ending. I admit, I read the book first so I have a bit of a bias because I absolutely love both it and the movie. But, I think the ending really works for the movie because people don't realize that this isn't an action movie. It's kind of it's own genre of existential storytelling since the main point is to show this rise of new age crime that the older generation can't keep up with. However, I understand the ending may be misleading because the Coens did change one big detail. Tommy Lee Jones's character is the narrator in the book too, but he also had a much bigger role in the overall story thematically. You can't accurately portray that in film, so the Coens decided to focus on Josh Brolin. Brolin's character is almost a supporting one anyways, so perhaps his arch felt incomplete because he really wasn't a lead actor role. Still, this was my favorite movie of last year. Blew everything except There Will Be Blood and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly out of the water.

• September 08, 2008 at 8:27 AM, Tashi said ...

  The more I read about how the ending pisses everyone off, the more I like it. It really gives me an appreciation for doing the unexpected.

  
  
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  August 23, 2008 at 5:48 AM, Josh said ...

  I'm not gonna lie. I did like this movie so much up until what I think was that last half hour. I would've called it the best movie of the year but I was just pissed off at that that I hated it after that. Thinking about it now though. I must admit that every part up until then is making it worth me buying so I can keep on watching that little bit.

• August 14, 2008 at 2:32 AM, Jay said ...

  I have to agree with Spill on this one. It doesn't matter what the creators were trying to achieve with the end; the purpose of movies is to entertain, and if they cannot provide an entertaining finish as well as getting their message across, then they have not done their job.

  
  
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  August 13, 2008 at 4:23 PM, SHADOWFLA said ...

  NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN its very cool , great , awsome , action movie i love this movie i give a ~F U L L E S T P R I C E

• August 08, 2008 at 2:32 AM, DeathMetalMike said ...

  No one who has explained the ending has properly done it, it's not supposed to be about "not being satisfied" or "chance" ... albeit it does do that ... but I will literally transcribe Tommy Lee Jones' end monologue word-for-word and explain each part and what it represents ... so for the rest of the post: ***********SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!****** "Alright then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em . It's peculiar. I'm older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he's the younger man. Anyway, first one I don't remember to well but it was about meeting him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some money. I think I lost it. " This obviously is a parallel to the conflict between Llewellyn Moss and Anton Chigurh, and by explaining Anton as being Moss' "father," they're basically showing that even though this new class of criminals that are pure evil, like Chigurh have come after the old criminals who committed crimes for good intentions, like Moss, the pure evil of the new criminals is the root of the good-intentioned ones. Plus, the fact that T.L.J. is older than his father was at his death refers back to the title, and how it is better to die young and full of hope and spirit rather to retire old and dejected. "The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past... and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up." OK, this part is much more complicated. T.L.J. is "goin' through the mountains of a night" because he is going through a time of despair. In contrast, while T.L.J. is losing hope and going away from the darkness, his father is going towards it, and the "fire in his horn" is symbolic of the hope that idealist policemen like him carried through till their deaths. His father's spirit and his hope still lives on, and when T.L.J. decides to regain that hope, he will be waiting for him. And that last sentence is just meant to provide perspective; T.L.J. awakens from the world of idyllic dreams and promise to the realistic world, where none of that exists.

  
  
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  July 05, 2008 at 1:26 PM, Kody said ...

  The movie was five stares. Tommy Lee was the main charicter and he missed the ending, therefor we missed the ending. i think the ending makes it better and drives the point of the movie home in a matter that isn't a corny action movie. By the by, all the credid for the diologe goes to the book. And in the end though it happens off screen, they tell you what happened to Moss and it taakes away. SPOILER ALERT! Moss is comfronted by a mexican, the girl Moss is with is held hostage. Moss gives up his gun and the Mexican shoots them both.

• May 29, 2008 at 8:01 PM, Patrick said ...

  I loved this movie. The ending was fine I thought, made perfect sense to me. Sure it's a little non-traditional, but it was the Coen brothers, and if you've seen Fargo or even the Big Lebowski, you may notice that they stray from the traditional ending where everything is resolved and the audience is happy. That doesn't mean it didn't make sense though.

  
  
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  April 17, 2008 at 12:17 AM, Sam said ...

  Okay, yeah the end was bullshit, but its still one of the best movies ever.

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