journal features

movie review - No Country for Old Men

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Tokyo, 2008.03.07

I really enjoyed this movie, though it was filled with psychopaths trying to kill each other. Set during the explosive early days of the growth of the drug trade in US, it starts with the discovery of a drug deal gone bad in the middle of nowhere. Present are a dozen bodies from two factions, and two parties who appear to have arrived after the blood-shed only to have been executed themselves. Or so the police discover come daylight. In the meantime, a hunter has also found the scene and discovered a big bag o' cash which he takes.

The rest of the hunter's nightmarish and short life begins when - still before the cops have arrived - he decides to go back to help a wounded man who lay dying in one of the vehicles on the scene. He'd originally left the man to die but decides (fatefully) to go back. This allows the biggest psychopath in the film to find him and start his pursuit.

The tone in this film is superb, the plot is harrowing, the characters compelling, and the dialog (for the most part) is convincing. I didn't find the compressed air canister to be a very effective conceit, but eh.

Strongly recommended.

rand()m quote

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.