No Country For Old Men
*SPOILERS*
I'm going to get this out of the way quickly; No Country is not your average crime thriller. Not by any stretch. This is the kind of film that seems to fuck with your head purely for the enjoyment of doing so. Your patience for red herrings and sick plot twists will decide your capacity to appreciate the ending, and the film in general.
No Country is fairly linear; man finds money, group of guys want money, and hire a guy off to track the man down. That's pretty much it for two hours. Only in the last 45 minutes does the film begin to reflect on what has just occurred. Those last 45 minutes are frustrating, puzzling, and disenchanting. But damn it, that's the direction they should have taken, and they did. I didn't love the ending, but I understand why it's there, and felt the Coens handled it as well as they possibly could have. Furthermore, the direction in general is absolutely brilliant. Cinematography, camera angles, they all enhance the film rather than weaken it.
The pacing is a worthy point of note; it's relaxed, which makes those 2 hours feel satisfying, and causes the moments that are truly intense to feel appropriately affecting in contrast. That thin plot feels so much more epic when the performances strengthen the characters, and they play up the intensity created by the dynamic camera angles and, of course, the gunplay. Which there is plenty of, I might add; this is not a film for those sensitive to blood and violence.
Overall, it's the definition of cracking, but part of me really wishes the good guys could have won.
8.5/10