Okay if you haven't already seen, No Country for Old Men then don't read this rant. I'm sorry but Hollywood film makers need to go back to school and relearn how to end a frickin' movie. No Country... was on track to being one of the best movies in decades in fact it would have taken up a spot in my top 5 fave flicks. For two to two and a half acts it moved along like an unstoppable locomotive of action, story and so on. But then Joel and Ethan decided to slowly choke the life and momentum out of the story.
Josh Brolin's character; the one we are rooting for gets capped. Fine, no problem but we don't get to see his demise. No going out in a blaze of glory, no accident, no suicide nothing. Instead we get Tommy Lee Jones showing up after it was all over. DUMB film choice; not showing (us)the viewer what the f$#@ happened. Woody Harrelson returns to the screen. Decent actor,likable. His character is a cocky bounty hunter type dude. We are baited into a eagerly awaiting the meeting of Woody and Crazy killer. Will Woody be able to put his money where his mouth is? Deep down inside we know he's going to bite it but at least we'll get good gun play or maybe another sadistic scene because we already know by this time that Javier Bardem's psychopath is well...totally psycho. So what happens? Woody walks up a staircase and the villain walks up behind him-game over. Oh boy hold the suspense phone until I get my heart pills I can't take it anymore. Why even have Woody in the movie? Hmm, couldn't tell you. Now then, getting to Tommy Lee, we have a sheriff who is obviously smarter than he looks, he's interesting a tad comical and more importantly he's a good investigator. Chances are he'll get the bad guy or at least go down in a shoot out with our villain. WRONG! Our fearless good guy follows the trail of the killer only to...retire at the end of the film. Instead of any form of action the sheriff goes out with what is meant to be a deep and moving monologue. The bad guy gets away fine, no big deal but it takes the longest slumbering 45 minutes to witness the dragged out demise of a potentially great movie.
The scuttlebutt is that the brothers Cohen stuck to the book ending. Thank god I didn't labor through the boring wordy papyrus of the book's ending. Hollywood ending 101: Move the movie along. Have a beginning a middle and a definitive ENDING!
And now we are at the end of this blog entry. There will be no more words which is to say goodbye but what is an ending to a blog anyway? Is one man's blog ending another man's blog entry. If I stop typing is that truly the end. OH NO! I've fallen into the dragged out ending, ending trap. Blast, I have become what I despise.
Bye for now...there will be a sequel to this blog entry by the way.
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