I'm loathe to slag off a film on the one viewing (especially when it's a film that EVERY CRITIC IN THE WORLD thinks is the dog's bollocks), but it took No Country For Old Men two hours to bag the Disappointment of the Year prize, and I don't see another film knocking it off its perch any time soon.
The problem (as no one has ever said to me ever, you understand) is all in the climax.
[This article discusses the climax of No Country For Old Men. You can probably guess there's going to be a few spoilers.]
So, with EVERY CRITIC IN THE WORLD saying it's the film of the year, I sit down to what I think is going to be a real cinematic treat. But alas, while the first hour is Fargo
For the first hour this film really is the superb, taut thriller that the critics say it is, but then it just falls apart. By the time of the closing monologue I didn't even care what anyone was saying. I didn't care who got killed or who survived. I'd been messed around enough and was more interested in what I was having for my tea.
And why is this? What do they do so wrong in telling this story?
It's simple. When you set up a story that is all about an unstoppable killer hunting a wily Vietnam vet who has stolen his money, you are kind of promising that some time before the end, these two are going to meet.
When your characters talk about 'sin' and the 'unrelenting Left Hand of God' so much, you are kind of promising that there is a climatic moment in store when the sinner (our hero who stole the money) will have to confront his agent of justice (one of the most psychotic nemeses in movie history).
When you present it all with a poster like the one above, you're kind of promising that the man on the run will eventually have to face up to what's running after him.
It doesn't mean that the film has to end with our hero escaping. I'm completely open as to which of them wins out. Hell, why not have both of them fuck each other over? How's that for bleak? But what it does mean is that they have to come together by the end. Because that is the story you promised us.
But when the main character suddenly gets murdered, off-screen, and is killed by someone else entirely, with half an hour to go, yes, you've surprised us. But you've also cheated us.
And this isn't the cheat of a surprise ending, or an unexpected twist in the tale, nor is it anything to do with the fact that real life doesn't have neat climaxes and story-like resolution and that's what Cormac McCarthy's books are all about anyway. The fact is, this film does not set out promising us one of those kinds of story.
There is a contract that a storyteller makes with an audience, and it happens at an early stage of any story, whether it's a brainless two-hour chase sequence or a poignant study of the human condition where nothing happens, in Farsi. You make a contract with the audience. They know what kind of story they are in, even though they don't know how it's going to end or what surprises there might be along the way. No Country For Old Men breaks that contract.
It's not that I hate films that don't follow the paradigm, Michael Clayton
Bill Martell calls it the 'obligatory scene'. It's the scene that has to be in your particular story because it's the scene that this story is all about. There's no point trying to be clever and not writing that scene.
In the end, what's most interesting about this film is how much it divides those who see it, from the passionate 'but it's just like real life' defenders, to the equally passionate 'they dont' know how to tell a story' decriers.
No Country For Old Men may well be just like 'life', but as one great storyteller once put it, life is just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If you're going to tell me a story, tell me a fucking story.