Woody Harrelson plays southern gentleman bounty hunter Carson Wells, a retired special forces Colonel, another ‘Nam vet who crosses Chigurh, and finds his forces aren’t special enough. Kelly Macdonald, once the Scottish schoolgirl seductress of Ewan MacGregor in Trainspotting, plays Moss’s trailer park wife with an affecting mixture of vulnerability and sassy compassion, with an accent that sounds like it has floated on the desert winds from Corpus Christie for all time.
The Coen brother’s direction is a master class in economy and dynamics. They keep up all the suspense and tension that the chase element of the narrative needs, while rejecting any of the usual clichés normally demanded by Hollywood. The enigmatic ending will infuriate many, as the dots remain defiantly un-joined; however if this is how you feel, the point of the film has been well and truly missed.
The Coens find time to let the camera linger on sweet wrappers unfurling, socks being changed, or cowboy boots just being, to keep the fans of their quirks busy with much to debate. There is probably a film studies thesis being written now about the use of reflection or numerology in this film. The film plays out devoid of musical distraction, the sound of silence punctuated by gravel crushed by boot, distant gunfire, or lonesome bells tolling. The dialogue, much of it directly from the novel, has a litany of quotable lines, and maintains the oblique strategy of real conversation, never descending into the archetypical narrative signposts that real blockbusters substitute for dialogue. It is this dialogue that takes this modern western, for all its fast paced action, and turns it into an elegiac meditation on life, death, and the regressive nature of progress.
"You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity." So says Bell’s uncle Ellis as the story draws to a close. It is this theme that is at the heart of the film, as Chigurh’s personification of death stalks good men and bad, in a totally arbitrary manner (with Harrelson’s bounty hunter comparing Chigurh’s mortal ambition to the bubonic plague, one wonders if there isn’t a homage to Bergman’s Death in the Seventh Seal lurking within this movie).
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Article comments
1 - Kevin Eagan
Thanks for the review. The book was amazing, I hope the movie turns out to be just as exciting.
2 - sed
Most UN-satifying movie experience. Have seem something like this done better in Fargo. It leaves a lot of loose ends, does not follow through with the characters (lead character dies unexpectedly with no followup on that). Left a lot of sour taste in the mouth. Most of the time it was slow. And the last hope, the Sherif, quits his job and ends the movie while talking about his dream.... Yawwwn. If the book ends this way then I don't think much of the book either. After investing more than an hour of your life following the characters and not getting any satifactory result is a shame. Definitely nothing to write home about.
3 - Nigel Simons
Sorry you didn't enjoy it, that is, after all what the ultimate point of a movie is. The movie, I think, reflects the perplexing nature of life, with all its paradoxes and its deep inhumanities, and finds a way of reflecting them by ignoring convention: the good guys lose, the baddie gets away,and things do not turn out how you expect,a bit like life biting you in the behind when you least expect it. I thought it made a refreshing change, but accept its a long way from mainstream entertainment.
4 - Will
The real test of a movie, to me, is would I recommend it to others...NO WAY! THat said the movie contains, great acting, excessive violece, slow in many places, no ending. This is a "critics movie". Not one I would recommend to anyone else.
5 - Enemy Combatant
Dear Mr. Simons, That's the most wonderful film review I've read for quite a long time. Each paragraph is a beautifuly polished literary figurine beaming with comprehension and existentialist smarts. You absolutely "got it". Several peers whose opinions I respect expressed frustration that there was "no resolution", but appreciating sublime cinematography often depends on the scope of one's own journeys.
During the film, flashes of David Lynch's "The Straight Story" and Jones' "Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" were impossible to supress.
Hope you have a smashing time taking your English Degree, "this is a film that sticks the cattle prod of reality between your eyes, and quietly tells you: it ain’t why, it just is.", keep that sort of thing coming and First Class Honours will be a right of passage rather than a hard slog.
Yours in Letters, EC.
P.S. If you havn't www.aldaily.com in your favourites column, it's certainly worth considering. Thanks for the joy.
6 - Nigel Simons
It is I who must thank you: I now feel twice blessed, firstly for words of kindness in a world where most kneel at the footstool of fundamentalist selfism, and secondly for the web site address that is now firmly installed in my bookmarks under the 'check daily section' - thank you.