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Not me. Watching the film, I was surprised by all the laughter. A lot of it is nervous laughs (a motel scene with gunshots in one room and reaction shots in another room has a lot of those), but since any kind of laughter makes you like the person who's making you laugh, even a bad guy (hello, Richard III), you become invested in what happens to him. And because it's Cormac McCarthy, good luck with that rooting for the good guy thing, pal.
As a Coen Brothers movie, this is Miller’s Crossing good. Everybody in this is fantastic, from Javier Badem and his mountain range of a face to where-do-I-know-her-from Kelly Macdonald (Trainspotting; Tristram Shandy). But the two stars are Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones. And that use of the word “stars” is where the movie and the book part company.
Basically, because Brolin’s not a star yet, you have no idea whether he’s going to survive the movie. And because Tommy Lee Jones is a star, you know exactly what is going to happen. Except that it doesn’t. Twice.
Not to spoil it too much, but there’s a major confrontation that does NOT take place, even though we want it, and expect it. (And when Brett Ratner does the remake in 20 years, we’ll get it.) But it isn’t in the book (which says one thing quietly) and it isn’t in the movie (which says something else very loudly).
I have to believe, because it's so faithful to the novel, that the Coen Brothers did this deliberately. Because the way your expectations are thwarted, the way you feel sucker-punched at the end, is just how you feel at the end of the novel, only 20 times stronger because it’s a movie.
Be warned. You will not walk out of this movie feeling “That’s how the story ends.” You’ll walk out feeling “That’s how life is.” And it's the rare movie that can make you do that.
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