So we did watch No Country for Old Men last night, and although it was critically acclaimed by everyone including the Queen (yes she gave it 11 stars out of 10; no one said otherwise), I was not all that impressed.

The cinematography was good, the acting was superb, but the overall meaning of the story was a fuddled mess. What was the point? Apparently, Tommy Lee Jones is the Main Character, but in watching the film, you’d be hard-pressed to pick that up. He’s tangental at best, inconsequential throughout, and although that may have been the point of their narrative, it didn’t help that he was not a focal point.

Hell, no one in the film was a focal point.

Watching the Movie you’d have thunk Josh Brolin was the main character. That is, until he’s found gun-downed rather anti-climatically. What about Javier Bardem? The guy with the bad hairdo? Well he’s a constant throughout the film, but he’s not the main character, he’s the nemesis. Woody Harrelson, maybe? Well if you’ve seen the trailers for the film, you’ve seen about all of Woody there is in this film.

The problem is, there’s no main character, and although the title of the film is the point of the film (time progresses, the old ways die out, old people become obsolete; lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum), we have no one to really follow this idea with through the movie. Tommy Lee Jones is given billing because his character epitomizes this idea, the title, but again I stress, if he’s going to be the central theme of the movie, he needs to be the central character.

It really seemed to me like the movie just sort of wandered around, following some gents here and there, and then made a point at the end. A point that didn’t really follow from what you’d seen, and a point that could just have easily been delivered on a postcard, instead of a Disc. Maybe in the form of Haiku or something.

Here it is: The film was irrelevant to the point of the film, and that’s just plain bad form. That takes it down quite a few earned notches from the acting & all. C+

Tags: Entertainment