"No Country For Old Men"

Criminals are becoming organized and more deadly.

They're no more organized today than they where 100 or 200 years ago.
But what has changed is their mind set, meaning they don't even give a second thought to killing anyone, children, nuns or cops.

In my town, even for a simple traffic stop you will see them most times approaching gun drawn behind them, there is a reason for that that the sheep being mislead by the media do not understand.

And more times than not the bad people have a criminal history that shows violence, not always but more than enough to justify.
America is a very violent society and as the jobs dry up for the average and the economic disparity widens they have nothing to lose. And don't really care either.
 
One of my favorite movies. The dialogue is great, takes the movie to another level if you like the little details and such. The secondary characters are just as good as the main ones and add to the 'authentic feel' of the story. I know its just fiction, with Hollywood's embellishment, but still very entertaining.
 
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Excellent movie!

In January of 2008, my wife and I went on a month-long road trip through the SW. Our first day on the road, we stayed at the Ashland Hotel in southern Oregon. Right next door was the Ashland Theater, and No Country was playing that evening. It was one of those old theaters, that still played one movie at a time. I'm a big fan of the Coen brothers, and I got to see it on the big screen. It was a great way to kick off a road trip!
 
Saw the movie with an old partner. When it ended and the lights came up, he looked at me and said, "...the hell?..."

And he never cusses.

I think all of the Coen brother's movies are strange but entertaining in a very weird sort of way..
 
I like the coens but wish they had stayed with stuff like o brother where art thou, big lebowski and of course their best ever raising Arizona.

"it ain't armed robbery if the gun ain't loaded"
 
On first reading the book I remember feeling that it was written very cinematically, that is, I could easily picture the scene being described. It was a bit like reading Elmore Leonard, where one often feels the book is being written with the movie to come already in mind.

Then, when I saw the movie, the opening sequence was just as I had imagined it when reading the book. I was disappointed, in a way, that McCarthy had figured out to do that, just as Elmore Leonard had, but I had to tip my hat. McCarthy is one of our greatest writers, and definitely a favorite of mine. I am pretty sure I have read all of his books, many more than once. The same could be said for Coen brothers' movies.
 
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I like the coens but wish they had stayed with stuff like o brother where art thou, big lebowski and of course their best ever raising Arizona.
"I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House. I dunno. They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused."

However, I'm still a fan of Miller's Crossing.
"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust? For a good return, you gotta go bettin' on chance - and then you're back with anarchy, right back in the jungle"

and,
"All in all not a bad guy - if looks, brains and personality don't count."
 
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Well okay, here is the scene that bugged me a bit. As I say near the beginning:

We see a deputy leading a handcuffed suspect to his car.....way out in the middle of nowhere. So, the deputy is back at his station all alone except for himself and the suspect.

Now, instead of locking the suspect into a cell, he simply has the suspect sit in a chair.....still cuffed....and then carries on a conversation on the phone with his sheriff about the mysterious suspect he just brought in......the entire time with his back to the suspect. We see the suspect in the back round rise from the chair and sneak up on the deputy......and he then brutally strangles the deputy with the handcuffs. Bad guy then cleans up in the restroom and then drives off in the deputies squad car.

Now I realize....it is just a movie. A good movie. A VERY good movie and that is why the scene bugs me because I can easier accept such "movie nonsense" in a lesser movie.


I cannot imagine in such an otherwise well written story they'd have this deputy so careless/stupid.

Russ

I understand what you are saying, but real world backs up Hollywood on this. Law enforcement personnel, even in large metropolitan areas are subject to having it's share of Darwin candidates. To wit, here in Michigan a few years ago, two officers got in a gun battle with each other. Recently in Wayne County, they accidentally released a dangerous felon. In a gun battle in Detroit at a jewelry store robbery, something like over 400 shots were fired with none of them hitting the suspects. Stuff happens, and I suspect that in less populated areas, the job candidates may be slim pickings coupled with budgets unable to provide comprehensive training. Yes, I can see that scene playing out much as the movie portrayed it to have.
 
Saw it once; didn't care for it and never watched it again. I thought it was rather stupid in some places. Especially the guy who supposedly blows off door knobs with compressed air or whatever it is.
 
I very much liked both the movie and the book. I'm anxiously waiting for Hollywood to make a movie of Blood Meridian which is my favorite McCarthy book. No Country for Old Men followed the book closely and I enjoyed it immensely. I have not watched The Road, but have read the book along with everything else McCarthy has written. My wife says, that for Cormac, The Road is an upbeat book with a happy ending because the kid does not get eaten by cannibals.

As for LE in general, whom I support, I have seen some stilly stuff. I recall as a college student walking home from the bar with half a dozen friends. We were within half a block of our house when a local city PO stopped his cruiser and hustled us for ID. He was rude and abrasive considering we were not falling down drunk or disrespectful. He dropped one guy's driver's license and bent to pick it up. I thought at the time that any one of the group could have sucker punched or kicked him insensible had we been so inclined.
 
"I'm going to toss a coin. You call it heads or tails. Just think that coin travelled all the way from 1968 to be here with us. now call it". "Good call, you can keep the coin but don't put it in your pocket or it will become just another coin."
 
The movie, as in almost all of them (aside from documentaries) are entertainment, fiction. Fiction writers have always had a lot of leeway in presenting their stories, so I just recognize it for what it is.

On the other hand, the American public has been conditioned to believe that police procedures as its presented in movies are the gospel. I personally don't have a problem with most of it. If some adam henry wants to believe that I have to always rack a round into the chamber before I take him on, so be it (my personal favorite). Won't he be surprised?

Or that I have to stop in the middle of an arrest and read out a Miranda warning, or that I have to even advise him at all on every arrest. How about every episode of of every 70's and 80's cop show where they are in a raging gun battle every week? Paying no heed to where their rounds are going, unlimited mag capacity, no IAB shoot team ever shows up, no mandatory suspension, no pysch interview after a shooting, no peer to peer counseling, hit in the shoulder, put a sling on it and back to work the next day, never, ever, any physical rehab....the list goes on and on

And don't get me started on crime scene procedures. "Well I saw it on CSI..." I can't count the number of times I heard that.

Where they could get DNA off of everything and match it within seconds and get video from everywhere and run it through facial recognition and on and on and on.
 
It was filmed here in NM.
I usually like the Coen Bro movies- Fargo, O Bro, Big Lewboski, Raising Arizona, etc.
I have seen parts of this several times.
But I just can't get into it!
I wish I could, I just can't!
 
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Tommy Lee Jones has a cup of coffee. Everybody kills everybody else. Tommy Lee Jones has a cup of coffee.
The End.

Tommy Lee Jones is one of the actors on my "I don't care if I ever see him again" list. I don't know how he got as far as he did as an actor. I think one of his worst performances was in The Fugitive".
 
It was filmed here in NM.
I usually like the Coen Bro movies- Fargo, O Bro, Big Lewboski, Raising Arizona, etc.
I have seen parts of this several times.
But I just can't get into it!
I wish I could, I just can't!

I am the same as you. Will watch parts of it but just can't sit through the whole thing. It's has great acting, script, cinematography, but I guess for me the savagery of the bad guy is just to real.
 
I have not read the book as some here have. I'm going to though because I'm wondering if the book explains how Anton Chigurh manages to survive after the car crash in which he walks away from it with an open fracture on his left arm.

I'd assume he'd already returned the satchel full of cash to its owner by then.

Maybe he raided another pharmacy to tend his own wounds as we'd seen earlier in the movie.

Maybe he walks away to simply die in an alley somewhere? Who knows.

Russ
 
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