spiritstereo Blog

Perhaps it was the inflated expectations of a Best Picture award and unanimous bedwetting-over by friends and critics alike, but No Country For Old Men seemed, especially in comparison to other movies of its type, remarkably lacking in substance, despite the arty parallels and supposedly thought provoking speechifying, something which was not offset by the straightforward, uninventive thriller structure.

 The ending was fine - as an arthouse denizen I loved the irony of the car crash and the general anti-climactic nature.  The problem was that by that time I didn't really care anymore.  All the supposedly philosophical stuff (coin flipping, monologues) called attention to themselves too emptily and brazenly, without any real meaning, and didn't manifest itself in the movie as a whole, only in self consciously virtuosic scenes.  Without any Hitchcockian restraint, all that remained was increasingly boring gore, signifying nothing.

I have no problem with nihilism as a philosophy, in fact I consider myself a bit of a proponent, but a filmic representation of such dismal subject matter doesn't have to be so boringly, aesthetically nihilistic.  The Coens have done far better things which just about all of their other movies, and I wouldn't recommend wasting your time with this one.

One of the more interesting parts of the advertising campaign for this movie is that it tries to blame the negative response and lack of U.S. distributor on John Lennon fans boycotting the film on principle.

This seems absurd mostly because that sort of controversy tends to be nothing but good news for a film - all except for poorly constructed vanity projects like this one.  Yeah, Leto gained 60 pounds for "Chapter 27", and he definitely looks it.  And you heard right, Lindsay Lohan's in it too, even though her role's a throwaway and she looks like she stepped right out of 2006.  But the whole thing reeks of a couple of famous actors trying to boost their serious-role cred in a vacuum of a film.

Though I'm as big a Lennon/Beatle fan as the next person, I thought the controversy was idiotic and there had to be a good reason for this film to have gotten made.  An incredible script, maybe, or a promising director.  Sadly, the thing is basically a 90 minute vacuum, with zero insight, cliched cinematography/editing, a bare-bones plot and plenty of Leto hamming it up while Lohan sits around posing.  There is nothing provocative other than the concept, just a bland, confusing movie about a bland, confused guy.