I viewed No Country for Old Men twice and thought it was one of the best films I've ever seen. It was time to see another film so I read some of the reviews here on IMDb. There will be blood had nothing but great reviews and was getting awards and nominations like No Country for Old Men so I figured I had to see it. It wasn't available to see locally for a couple weeks and I unfortunately didn't check the reviews again before going to see it yesterday. I'm seeing bad reviews for this film now and I can understand after seeing the film.
I didn't get into any of the spoilers so I didn't know what to expect. I only had a basic idea of what it was about.
The film opens with a view of the plains which was nice to see. Then, out of nowhere, this horrible screeching violin tears into your head leaving you wondering "what the hell was that all about?". I figured it was setting something up for later in the film. The only purpose of that noise that I can figure is to give the film an eerie feel though it really only helped me to understand that this film wasn't put together properly.
Early on, Daniel basically adopted the young son of one of his men that died on the job showing a caring side of him but not much else happened.
I waited patiently for the film to progress and thought it was finally about to when Daniel commenced drilling on the land he purchased from the Sundays and the feud between Daniel and Eli started to develop. But, I saw their interactions as strange and misguided along with the plot at this point in the film.
I had a hard time trying to figure out how religion worked it's way into the plot especially when bad things started happening at the drilling site after Eli didn't get to bless the drilling. I thought religion was going to take over a bit at that point and the drilling was essentially cursed and doomed. Nothing ever happened with it though leaving me wonder what the point of introducing religion into the film was.
Daniel seemed to have good moments and bad moments at this point making me wonder if he was a good guy or a bad guy. He seems to care for HW after he hit his head but then runs off to see that the fire gets put out. He seems to console HW after losing his hearing but sends him off and goes about running his operation. I guess that people can have a good side and a bad side but it was strange seeing Daniel go back and forth being good and bad.
The scene where Daniel gets baptized is the only entertaining and funny thing in the entire movie but it's sort of awkward seeing how religious the towns people are and how religion was introduced earlier on in the film. I wondered where they were going to take religion in the film next.
Daniel goes off to see that the pipeline gets built and finds out that the man claiming to be his brother isn't actually his brother after negotiating the pipeline deal. He finds this out by going along with his "brothers" wishes to get drunk and get women to celebrate their pipeline deal. It seemed like Daniel wanted to see if his "brother" was going to show a greedy side to determine whether or not he was playing him for his money. His "brother" gets greedy asking for money for a prostitute and Daniel calls him on it finding out he was playing him all along. My problem with this is that anyone can have a desire to go get drunk and get women; including a real brother so I don't think this scene made any sense.
Daniel comes back and brings HW back and strangely tries to go on with business as usual like nothing really happened. He's a good guy again for bringing HW back after the hard work is completed but is a bad guy again for ignoring to nurture HW and failing to learn sign language so they can communicate with each other.
The film falls apart at the end when HW talks with Daniel and Daniel basically ignores and makes fun of him until HW mentions that he's starting his own oil company. Daniel goes off the deep end and pushes HW away in a very cruel way. The most ridiculous scene of the film is when Eli pays Daniel a visit out of nowhere asking for money. I had seen way more than enough up to this point and this scene left me hating myself for wasting my time and money to watch the film.
I tried hard to understand the films direction and purpose but really couldn't with how sloppy it was. It was pretty much all about Daniel and that's certainly nothing that anyone wants to see. Why would I want to see a sloppy story about a greedy oil man and his messed up life? I just don't get it.
Regarding the reviews, how could anyone possibly give this film a good review? You caused me to waste my time and money and I'm sure there are many more just like me.
I will say that Daniel Day Lewis' performance was good given the circumstances. His character, Daniel Plainview, was a not so good in a horrible film.
Go see No Country for Old Men if you want to see a good film. Hey, it doesn't even have music added to it and it certainly doesn't have a horrible screeching violin that tears into your head leaving you wondering "what the hell was that all about?".
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