No Country for Old Men [Blu ray] :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

Quick ship - Perfect Condition

2008-07-10
The dvd shipped in less than a week and played perfectly. Great flick. Tommy Lee Jones is almost unrecognizable! What a different role for him. Not really the tough guy, but still the "tough guy," if you know what I mean. Loved it.

Great Film, Lame Ending

2008-07-09
I was sorely disappointed with No Country, and here is why.

If you don't want to sit through an intense film that really sucks you in, then leaves you hanging for a conclusion, don't watch this movie. The "ending" is not an ending at all. It is a VERY violent, linear film, which left me watching the end credits thinking "um, so how does the story end?"

I would not have been so disappointed had I not really enjoyed the story up until it suddenly stopped with no proper conclusion.

WHAT A TRIP! SUSPENSEFUL & SCARY & UNPREDICTABLE

2008-07-09
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

What took me so long to watch this movie? Lord, I was swept into this thriller immediately and the time just flew by while watching. I will admit to jumping and being scared and having the willies -- yes, even today in broad daylight I am still a little unsettled.

Tommy Lee Jones, fantastic as always, as a small-town sheriff. Javier Bardem as the BAD guy, which doesn't even begin to describe him. Such talent in this flick! Drug-dealers, stolen money,even humor and some laughs, brutal, cold-stone murders, and tons of surprises and thrills.

I did not know Javier Bardem as an actor, but what an impression he made on me! He is such a great actor that he made me fear him, hate him, and now I can't stop thinking about him! Where have I been all this time that I didn't know he existed? Well, now I have just ordered most of his movies from Netflix!!! Wow, is he going to ALWAYS be the BAD guy? Maybe he should be because he is AWESOME at being bad!

Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and many, many more actors/actresses did a totally great job in this movie. Get this, lock the doors and windows, and enjoy. I will not soon forget this movie. No young kids in the room, please.

ENJOY! YIKES!

Thanks!
Pam

NOT worthy of a Best Picture Academy Award (or any award for that matter)

2008-07-08
Fortunately, I borrowed this disc (Blu-Ray) from a friend. Many of us use that common rating system: Is it worth seeing at the theater, or wait until it comes out on disc and rent it? Thankfully I didn't pay anything to see this movie because that's what it was worth. Bottom line, don't waste your time; it's VERY unfulfilling.

I don't have any faith in the Academy Awards choosing best picture any longer. It seems that they had to give it to something, so why not this?

I generally enjoy Tommy Lee Jones's acting, but for him to portray a Texas sheriff isn't much of a stretch at all; he's practically been typecast (US Marshalls, The Fugitive, etc). He's just older and more tired in this movie.

The movie meanders along showing us senseless killings by the antagonist using a cattle gun and a shotgun with an enormous (uh, movie blunder) brushed nickel silencer (shotgun silencers are not very effective, and only cut the VERY loud noise by about 5-6 dB). The protagonists' character development never takes place, and we're supposed to sympathize with the older sheriff's bleak perspective of the country, senseless brutality, and futility of justice all from his monologue at the opening of the film and a few short scenes with friends or his wife. It doesn't happen.

Without giving anything away, the ending will probably leave you questioning: "What, that's it?" You might sit there staring blankly at the screen (as many people did after Blair Witch Project) wondering what just happened and how it could have ended that way, but thankful that it's finally over.

This movie was entirely over-rated, and is the perfect example of people thinking it's good simply because they've been told by others that it's a work of art and is good. Instead of behaving like mindless sheep, they should speak their own opinions rather than parrot the views of others and simply state: this movie was dismal. It was just plain bad. Many have said there is fine cinematography... if setting a camera up to shoot the wide Texas landscape is fine cinematography, then any idiot with a panoramic movie camera must be an incredible DP (Directory of Photography). The subject and location do NOT make fine cinematography. Lighting, focal length, aspect ratio, and filtering in addition to camera angle and movement are used to determine fine cinematography (and "mood") such as shown in The Godfather in the opening scene.

I would not recommend this movie to anyone.

Why one should not steal money from the bad guys

2008-07-07
Texas heat and a slew of shady characters ornament this movie. As main character Moss runs into mess of human and canine bodies and finds $2MM drug money during his hunting trip, we get to see the determination of the former Vietnam vet to turn the life of his family around once he has a full possesion of his money. As he tries to avoid drug dealers, former special operations soldiers and a serial killer he gets on to fight for his life as if he is back in the war fields. We track him pacing between US and Mexican border, beaten, battered and wounded attempting with all his might to preserve the money he found in order to ensure a better life for himself and his wife. Javier Bardem plays a killer who kills indiscriminately everyone on his path. He needs no other reason to kill them but the fact that people see his face or loose the coin toss bet to dispose of them. He fights by the principals that are stronger money, power or any other values we are used to. He makes his own rules. Ending is somewhat unexpected, but than again this is a Coen Brothers' movie and they have their own way of presenting reality to their audience. I expected more from this movie. Josh Brolin shines in his role of a vietnam veteran and so does Tommy Lee Jones in his role of the tired police sheriff.

No Country For All Men

2008-07-16
This film was a surprise to me. First, I enjoyed other Coen films like Big Lebowski and Fargo but this had me re-examining those movies because of how great it was. It follows the story of three characters whose lives have been interwoven due to a botched drug deal which the viewer is only given a view of in the aftermath. You have the traditional good guy in Tommy Lee Jones trying to do what is best for the world, the non-traditional good guy in Josh Brolin who is trying to do what is best for himself, and the bad guy played by Javier Bardem whose performance was more than deserving for best supporting actor. This movie trumps There Will Be Blood only because it has three fantastic characters telling the story instead of one fantastic character in Daniel Plainview. It was a treat to help myself to Daniel Day-Lewis's performance, but it was three times the treat to watch this film. No Country For Old Men is one of those movies that hits every note right and if you don't like this film, your probably don't like many movies. The Blu-ray is a must buy for anyone who enjoyed this or any film.

Thought Provoking

2008-07-13
I don't love this movie, but I don't hate it either. I came away from
it kind of puzzled and was grateful for some of the reviews posted,
as they clarified quite a few oversights and misunderstandings I had
about the film when I watched it.

The film is somewhat violent, but in no way did I find the killing
gratuitous or out of context. To me, gratuitous violence is the gory,
blood-drenched, voyeuristic killing you see in slasher and snuff films.
As for the movie's plot, I thought the story was straightforward enough
and has been summarized here adequately by other reviewers. I did not
read the book the film was based on, so can't answer to how true the
film stayed to its origins. What I found most complex about the film was
its characters, and of course, the film's hotly contested ending.

It seems Americans, for the most part, like seeing movies that are easy to
digest and have tidy endings. You're not going to get either of these when
you watch this film. Of the Coen movies, I'm guessing the reason Fargo
received such a positive response (I personally love the film) was due to,
among other things, the presence of characters with well-defined moral
boundaries and a "justice served" type of ending.

In "No Country For Old Men," the world view of the characters and the moral
codes they abide by are not simple to define. In Llewelyn Moss, you have a
man stupid enough to steal drug money, compassionate enough to take a drug
runner a jug of water, loyal enough to tell a pool-side prostitute he's married,
and power-hungry enough to sell his wife out to the assassin on his trail. By
the end of the movie, it's not even about the money for him anymore. He's
seduced by the chase, which ends in tragic consequences. For all intents, I
thought Javier Bardem does an excellent job as the sociopathic killer---accent,
bowl hair cut, and all. The fact that Anton Chigurh lives by his own twisted
"code" when it comes to his victims makes his character all the more chilling and
intense. The most complex character by far, however, is the sheriff played by
Tommy Lee Jones. A man trapped in the past glory days of law enforcement when
capturing bad guys was a lot simpler, Sheriff Bell cannot wrap his tired, old brain
around the likes of criminals like Anton Chigurh. For me, his apathy and denial
(he queries at one point if Anton Chigurh is real or just a ghost) signals one of the
film's subtler moral dilemmas. One of the most powerful scenes in the film---and
one I can't quite make sense of---is when Bell enters the last crime scene and
Chigurh is hiding behind the door. That scene sums up the moral ambiguity that the
Coens seem to be going for. What's worse? Monsters at large or the society unable to
harness them, for whatever reason? For me, the end of the film helps to answer this
very question.

Overall, I found it to be a very thought-provoking piece. I would need to see it once
or twice again, just to get in the dialogue, as I had a difficult time understanding the
Texas drawls of the characters at times. I'm giving this movie three stars due to the
quality acting and the fact that it really makes you think about what you've seen
rather than just take part as a passive observer.

Huh?

2008-07-12
The title "No Country for Old Men" implies a protagonist that's (a) old, and (b) baffled and shaken by the brutality of modern times. The old man in this [drug deal gone bad] is the rural county sheriff, Tommy Lee Jones. Modern times is the world of drug deals [gone bad] and the psychopaths who avenge the drug dealers [when drug deals go bad]. So there's the title, with its implications, and the major movie star to fill out the picture.

But the picture make no sense, Johnny, because (a) the sheriff is a supporting character [if that, and I mean it's a stretch], and (b) he's never in jeopardy.

The Story is about the Josh Brolin character versus the Javier Bardem character, and that story is a good one--to a point. Javier, playing the psychopath, pursues Brolin with--what do you think? A one-gallon cannister of compressed air with a hose attachment. This rig, any finish carpenter will tell you, will exert up to 130 psi. If there's a nail at the end of that 130 psi, and the nail is put to your temple, maybe you got a problem, since 130 psi will blow that nail well into solid wood. But if there's no nail--in fact, if there's nothing but an air blower, and the air blower is applied to your forehead--I'm finding it real difficult to buy into the Coen's claim that this device will (a) kill a man, and (b) blow a deadbolt lock out of its door and across the room, slamming it into a wall 10-12 feet away. The one-gallon cannister, of course, can fire numerous "rounds" without recharge before expiring.

This defiance of the laws of physics is called suspension of disbelief in the world of fiction, and in a Steven Siegal movie, I'm right there. But in a Coen Bros. flick where it's clear (or at lest implied) that the intent was--well, now that's the riddle, isn't it? What did the Bros. intend?

Got me, chief. I was so baffled by the ending that I wondered if there hadn't been a mistake some place.

A darker Coen brothers film

2008-07-11
I am surprised at the number of negative reviews here. For some, it seems they don't realize that the Coen brothers didn't write the story of No Country for Old Men. It's a novel by Cormac McCarthy, and the Coens take great swathes of dialogue and narration verbatim from the book. I also don't understand what is pretentious about this movie. It's a fairly straightforward regional thriller set in west Texas in 1980, when violence seem to get more violent as cocaine and heroine started to flow into the United States at an alarming rate. This new brand of drug dealing gives birth to pure evil, incarnated in the character of Anton Chigurh (played wonderfully by Javier Bardem). I can see how this kind of a story may not be for everyone. The violence in this film is serious unlike Raising Arizona and the regionalisms aren't meant to be as funny as in Fargo (although I laughed a lot at the west Texan wit and colloquialisms in this film).

The cinematography and sound are excellent as in all Coen brothers' movies, and the acting is spectacular. Josh Brolin performs well as the resourceful Llewelyn Moss. He is able to work a scene by himself with no music and no dialogue. Tommy Lee Jones gives a good performance as a tired old sheriff, Ed Tom Bell. Even Woody Harrelson does a decent impression of a professional hit man. But it's Javier Bardem who steals the movie. He delivers his lines in a measured, very low and gravelly voice. His Spanish accent comes and goes at surprising times, often in the middle of words. He has what must be the devil's haircut; he's one of the creepiest human characters I've seen in a long time.

Cormac McCarthy seems to have accidently written No Country for Old Men for the Coen brothers. It shares many elements with their previous films: regionalism, movements from wide open to claustrophobic spaces, Western motifs, cartoon and nightmare natures of violence, and surrealism. The Coen brothers do a fine job, and I recommend the film to all of their fans.

Watch Pulp Fiction instead. Funnier.

2008-07-11
I was excited by the reviews and the Oscar the movie won. The Coen Brothers was enough for me to tune on. So I did.

End result: disappointing.

Anyone who's watched Pulp Fiction will see some lame twist on that plot. It's bloody, it aims at being philosophical embodiment of Randomness... but it's just bloody. The humor is really sporadic. The acting's not bad, but that's not enough to make me want to see it over and over again... So skip it!