Kevin wrote:
>
> I'm sorry you didn't like NO COUNTRY. But if you
think that's the
> Coens' worst film, for God's sake stay away from
their version of THE
> LADYKILLERS.
>
I actually liked The Ladykillers. Yeah, I know I might've
been the only one. While I didn't like it nearly as much as
most of the other Coen bother movies, or the Alec
Guinness/Peter Sellers version, I thought it had some
clever/amusing touches. I even liked to a lesser degree,
Intolerable Cruelty. I felt let down by No Country. Jarvier
Bardem's character never seemed real to me--more like a
cartoon character, and there was too much conceit--such as
having to carry that hydraulic weapon around while a simple
pistol, or even a knife would've done the job just as well.
And the "unconventional" ending bit and skipping the
confrontation that the story is building up to, then having
Tommy Lee Jones spend the last 20 minutes moaning about his
dreams, that pushed me over the edge to hating the
movie.
> I'm with you, though, on BEFORE THE DEVIL. All the
parts were there,
> but it didn't gel at all for me. And it really
should have.
>
> But there was no fire -- it all seemed curiously
flat. One of the most
> tired, dispassionate movies about passion I've ever
seen, like 60
> MINUTES doing a by-rote report on the events
depicted in BODY HEAT or
> THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. Maybe Hoffman was
tired. He was only
> in 437 movies last year. Which left the thespian
heavy lifting to
> Ethan Hawke.
>
> But it was more than just the acting. It was the
approach to the story
> itself that felt off. There was a sense of
exhaustion to it before it
> even began. Maybe that was the intent, but it didn't
work for me...
>
That's pretty much how Before the Devil left me--except also
feeling that there should've been a great movie in
there.
--Dave
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