Men in Black III

Sunday was International Moon Day (yes, that's a "thing") commemorating the date that human beings first put boot-treads on the Moon. That historic mission figured fictionally in this movie.

Written at the time of the film's release. 

Time Wounds All Heels
or
"Don't Ask Questions You Don't Want to Know the Answer To..."

The third "Men in Black" film had to go somewhere else but up. The first two films were variations on the "illegal alien" theme about a government organization that monitored the activities of extraterrestrials in the world and specifically New York City, and revolved around alien invasions and the containment of said aliens. And when you've seen one alien invasion directed by Barry Sonenfeld, you've seen them all, and hyper-kinetically at that. And once it's been established that "aliens can be anywhere" the joke runs a bit dry pretty quickly, especially when the sub-species can contain pug-dogs and large cockroaches. The second film tried to expand on those concepts and felt a bit thin in the process, concentrating a bit too much on the secondary characters rather than the basic plot and the character interactions.

So, where does Men in Black III go from there?

One of the nice aspects of the series has been its ability to still think outside the box, while expanding the horizons of just what that box might contain, be it variations of scale and dimension, even if only in afterthought. With the infinite reaches of space seemingly exhausted, the group (based, supposedly on an idea by Will Smith) has the series going back in time. Naturally. It ostensibly revolves around an Earth-takeover plot by another alien (one must ask at some point "why always us?"), "Boris the Animal" (who seems based on the DC Comics "Hell's Angel in Space" Lobo and is played with growly gutteral responses by Jemaine Clement from "Flight of the Conchords") who escapes from his maximum (and we mean maximum) security prison to find the man who sent him there 40 years ago—Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones). When he's unable to kill him here, the Boglodite finds another means to do so, and Agent J (Smith) wakes up the next morning, the only one with any memories of K past July, 1969. Agent K has been killed by Boris in the past, and J must journey back to try and save him.*

Once back there, J negotiates his way through a 1960's era way of doing things. Everything's a little less high-tech (a little less), but the MIB Agency is still there, as is the much younger Agent K (Josh Brolin, doing a bang-on interpretation of Jones) and J must solve the puzzle of saving the Earth (of course), while keeping K safe. The past sequences are great—Men in Black has exploited the "fish-out-of-water" angle perpetually—and new corners are being thrown out the whole time (My favorite being a brief glimpse of a "Barbarella"-type being escorted around MIB, and although Smith is a bit too "Red Bull" throughout the entire movie, check out his understated reaction to some Black Panthers). 

Great cast, too. Rip Torn is gone, but David Rasche plays him in the past, Emma Thompson is on hand as the new MIB head, Will Arnett makes a brief appearance as does Bill Hader. Toss in the chameleon-like Michael Stuhlbarg as an alien able to read multiple time-lines and there's always someone to deflect the eye, or hand things off from Smith.

But, the best thing about this "Men-in-Black" installment is resonance. The other two were fine, the first better than the second just for its novelty, but had a shelf-life of three minutes. Part of it is Sonenfeld's way of comically undercutting any meaning to the thing, by changing perspective—"you think you got a handle on it yet? Well, let me throw THIS at you!" The whole "the Universe is so big and cosmic that there's no way you can understand it because there's so many mysteries, so nothing is real" concept, which is the backbone of the series (and the source for most of its humor) leaves one with a feeling of "meh"—nothing matters in a vast uncaring, unfathomable Universe. 

Not here. The cold of Space has nothing to do with the leavening of Time, and, in this case, the franchise plays it straight, without a wink, a nod, a reveal, or a goo-spraying splat. For once, something really means something in the "Men in Black" Universe, and that venturing into uncharted territory makes the third time the charm.

  * I'm not saying anything here that isn't revealed in the trailer.

JFK

JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991) 

 

"To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards of men."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

At the time of this film's release, Stone's movie-collage of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories was more than controversial, it was inflammatory. Experts in "the field" criticized it for playing fast and loose with facts and some went so far as to call it dangerous in its implications. There was so much flummery going on, some of which contradicted other speculations of the film, that it was considered a new form of propaganda, where new possibilities popped up before previous assertions were followed up on, that one was simply overwhelmed with the slew of speculations so that, finally, nothing was ever concluded. There were no answers, merely a mountain of questions, all of them vague and unsubstantiated. Stone was merely throwing stuff up at the screen and seeing if anything stuck.

Stone answered these charges by saying that he was making a new kind of film, and that he was trying to build a new narrative for the Kennedy assassination, not provide a definitive answer, but to ask questions, merely. The evidence of film bears it out—at least at first glance—as it's so filled with theories and goes down so many rabbit-holes, unchecked and unverified (Stone has stated he was using the films Rashomon and Z as his models). But, one only has to see how Stone starts the movie to know where he thinks the center of the conspiracy lies. After that quote by author and spiritualist Ella Wheeler Wilcox, he introduces Kennedy's predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower's final address as President, in which he warns of "the military-industrial complex". Like so many openings of so many movies, it is the director's thesis statement, providing that one bit of detail before launching into a history of Kennedy's recent history (narrated by Martin Sheen, who has played both John and Robert Kennedy in the past).

"I'm ashamed to be an American today."

The film proper begins the day of Kennedy's assassination as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner, who had, in 1998's Bull Durham, delivered a speech in which his character states "I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.") sees the assassination coverage on television initially in his office, then watches mournfully from a nearby bar where the local booze-hounds are free to weep in their beers or grunt their approval of the President's death. At the same point he cuts away to an argument between two men in the bar, New Orleans private detective Guy Bannister (Edward Asner) and an operative Jack Wheeler (Jack Lemmon),* which leads to a fight in Bannister's office when Martin brings up past suspicious activity. Meanwhile, Garrison starts looking into local links to the assassination and brings in pilot David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), who might have had links with Oswald. And despite Ferrie being sketchy and giving conflicting stories, they let him go.

"It's all broken down, spread around, you read it and the point gets lost."

It is only after the Warren Commission Report on the assassination is released that Garrison picks up the threads of the case again. A chance airplane encounter with a Senator (Walter Matthau), whose skepticism —"That dog don't hunt!"—about the report sparks Garrison to again call in Ferrie, but also Martin, who had seen Lee Harvey Oswald in Bannister's office and follow up leads not explored after the initial inquiry was dropped. One name keeps popping up—"Clay Bertrand" but nobody knows who that is. Turns out that "Bertrand" is an alias of Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), well known in New Orleans business circles as a wealthy benefactor and who had connections with Ferrie and thus Oswald. Garrison and his team have Shaw picked up for arrest despite their inquiries producing only denials.

 

"Oh, you are so naive"

 

One aspect of the film that is both a high achievement and problematic is the way that it mixes archive footage with deftly re-created new footage in such a way that it is nearly impossible to determine one from the other. Stone and his cinematographer, the wizardly Robert Richardson, mix and match formats, color and black-and-white, 35mm and 16mm, and all sorts of film stocks to create and re-create source footage and the results are nearly indistinguishable, especially the way they are cross-cut between each other. It lends the air of verisimilitude—and certainly adds a dynamic tension between the transitions—but one is never sure if one should believe what one is seeing. Is that press footage from the day of the shooting or is Stone just fabricating something he wants you to see?

It's troubling. There's a fine line between making it look right and obfuscation and given that film, by its very nature, is manipulative—even with documentaries—the level of distrust this attention to detail evokes is extremely high. What are we to believe? The answer is whatever the director wants you to believe. And given Richardson's deserving Oscar-winning work on this film to match the look, the grain and the confusion of archive footage, some of which might even be familiar, distinguishing the true from forgery is almost impossible. And audiences become susceptible.

One should always be aware that it's a fictional film of real-life events. And rather than speaking truth, it can only come up with conjecture.

 

"And the truth is on your side, bubba."

 

Stone makes his own case on what happened in a middle sequence where Garrison goes to Washington D.C. to meet an informant, a former military official who only identifies himself as "X" (Donald Sutherland, who's brilliant in a role of pure exposition). That Garrison would fly to D.C. to meet an anonymous source strains credulity (he surely must know his name before agreeing to meet, but then, the reality is Garrison never met this character, communicating with him in un-cinematic exchanges of letters).

It is 'X''s contention that Kennedy was making feasibility studies for withdrawing troops from Vietnam—"X" was doing the inquiries—and that this rattled the cages of the Pentagon and the CIA. "X" is unexpectedly assigned to...Antarctica...and only learns of the assassination the next day when he reads a New Zealand newspaper that has a full run-down on Oswald as the assassin when he hadn't even been charged yet. To "X" this smacks of "black ops" work (which he also used to do). Oh, and did I mention that "X" was also part of Kennedy's security detail? "X" seems to have got around.

Anyway, by the end of his exposition, "X" has a conspiracy that could involve the Pentagon, "the military-industrial complex", FBI, CIA, Cuban exiles, the Mafia, the Secret Service and Lyndon B. Johnson—he was in the fired-upon motorcade, after all—and all of them had grudges against Kennedy, but mostly, they didn't want to cease operations in Vietnam which was making a lot of people a lot of money. This is the same Vietnam War that Oliver Stone fought in from 1967 to 1968 with the 25th Infantry, which was a traumatic experience for him, and that he has made the subject of three of his films.

"X" refuses to come forward with this information and flat-out refuses to be a witness for Garrison's prosecution, but "X" tells him that his best chance is that he's the only guy conducting a trial involving the Kennedy assassination. "Your only chance," he says "is to come up with a case. Something. Anything. Make arrests. Stir the shit-storm. Hope to start a chain reaction of people coming forward. Then the government will crack." And, with those words of encouragement, he walks away, leaving Garrison hanging. Stone cuts to the Eternal Flame at Kennedy's grave. When Stone gets in trouble, he goes for sentimentality.

The film's last hour is that most deadly of momentum killers, a trial, with Exhibit A being a long speech by one character...in this case Garrison.* That speech wouldn't stand in a court of law and it isn't made clear if it's a closing argument (that barely mentions the defendant Clay Shaw) or a part of Garrison's evidentiary overview (it starts with objections from the defense and then they are never heard from again), but Stone is dramatically stretching truth...and credulity...to make his point. And it goes on forever, like the stultifying final speech in court in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. It's only Stone's direction, Richardson's chameleon cinematography and Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia's quick-silver editing that keeps it interesting as film. And almost impossible to make counter-arguments against the assertions, they come so fast and furiously.

Stone's film ends with "what's past is prologue." Okay, so let's look at the past. All previous American political assassinations, successful or otherwise, before and after Kennedy's own, have been due to "lone gun-men" (or women). The most suspicious shooting is that of Martin Luther King, Jr.  And most damning of all, recent events have seen Presidents and Vice-Presidents questioning or ignoring, even humiliating their own intelligence or military agencies...but manage to remain very much alive. Kennedy was less of a threat...he merely wanted to wind down a war...as has been done recently...and Stone would have you think he was killed for it.

Yet, History doesn't bear that out. In fact, though they may rebel (or at least write a book), they don't assassinate. "That dog don't hunt."

Remember, "what's past is prologue."

But, the film did have an impact. 99% of the documents that were sealed after the assassination have been brought to light, particularly to the issues raised in the movie (The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 was passed in 1992, the year after the movie's release). Although the stated goal of the act was to release all documents by October 2017, some still have not been released. Trump went back on a promise to release them pushing it back to when he was out of office, then Biden delayed them (COVID...for some reason) then released some in 2022 and 2023.** We're at 99% except for those that would cause "identifiable harm... to the military, defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations... of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in disclosure."

Same old excuse. "It'll keep us from doing our jobs" they say, even if those jobs have dramatically changed in 60 years. But, if JFK is worth anything, it is for its shaming of our government agencies' lack of transparency to commit them to act in that 1992 law. Six decades is two generations of secrets. Too many people and too many prominent people have expressed their doubts to not have as many answers as possible to wash away as many questions as possible.

Not that that will make a difference. We've reached the Age of Un-reason where nobody believes their own eyes anymore. If everything was released, unredacted and transparent, it is doubtful that the truth would be accepted...especially by those who make their livings as professional doubters and skeptics.

The true conspiracy has always been theirs. As in the mantra of All the President's Men, one merely has to "follow the money."

"It's up to you."

 

* The film is awash with cameo's and "guest-stars" in what Stone intended to be like the roster of The Longest Day, but it feels more like the many odd cameos in The Greatest Story Ever Told, that seem ill-though-out and are actually distracting and pull you right out of the movie. John Candy? 

** This is just part of Garrison's summation from the film:

The Warren Commission thought they had an open-and-shut case. Three bullets, one assassin. But two unpredictable things happened that day that made it virtually impossible. One, the eight-millimeter home movie taken by Abraham Zapruder while standing by the grassy knoll. Two, the third wounded man, James Tague, who was knicked by a fragment, standing near the triple underpass. The time frame, five point six seconds, determined by the Zapruder film, left no possibility of a fourth shot. So the shot or fragment that left a superficial wound on Tague's cheek had to come from the three shots fired from the sixth floor depository. That leaves just two bullets. And we know one of them was the fatal head shot that killed Kennedy. So now a single bullet remains. A single bullet now has to account for the remaining seven wounds in Kennedy and Connelly. But rather than admit to a conspiracy or investigate further, the Warren Commission chose to endorse the theory put forth by an ambitious junior counselor, Arlen Spector, one of the grossest lies ever forced on the American people. We've come to know it as the "Magic Bullet Theory." This single-bullet explanation is the foundation of the Warren Commission's claim of a lone assassin. Once you conclude the magic bullet could not create all seven of those wounds, you'd have to conclude that there was a fourth shot and a second rifle. And if there was a second rifleman, then by definition, there had to be a conspiracy.

*** Whether Trump will release any more documents in his next term one can only speculate. I don't believe a word the man says so even if he says he will, I'd be looking at updates on the website: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk

Hope Springs (2012)

Written at the time of the film's release...

Breathe 
or 
Breaking Noses and the Fourth Wall

When Tommy Lee Jones was interviewed on "Inside the Actors Studio" and they got to the point where James Lipton asks "those" questions, and he was asked "What word do you hate?" Jones curled his lip and said "Cute."

Fortunately, he's in Hope Springs, which, unfortunately, is the very definition of "cute," and manages to take some of the smirk out of it and put in the sting. The tale of a pair of "empty-nesters" trying to rekindle the pilot light of their marriage and claw out of their rut, it is merely saved by the stalwart efforts of Jones and Meryl Streep, who say more with their body language—his trudging walk and her nervous, frustrated sighs—than any blunt dialogue could convey.

The script by Vanessa Taylor (she's written for "Everwood," "Alias," "Game of Thrones" and created the short-lived but well-regarded "Jack & Bobby"—quite the gamut, there) is long on touchy-feely aphorisms about metaphors, commitment and getting outside your comfort zone, dispensed by marriage counselor Steve Carell, who cuts out the dangerous aspects of his comedy potential and replaces it with wan smiles and scrutinizing eyes. David Frankel's direction (he directed Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, directed Marley and Me and last year's The Big Year) is safe, but sound (which makes you wonder why he's not directing for The Weinsteins, and he's much more adventurous when working in TV) and keeps things from getting too treacly.

The pressure, then, is on Streep and Jones to bring everything to the table and they're an interesting study in contrasts. She's all invention, imaginatively communicating with extraneous gestures of agitation and nuance, that burst out of her in spurts. Jones is instinctive, making the text real with superb line readings with a minimum of fuss—funny as Jones' character is the fussy one, complaining constantly, passively aggressive, and not offering much in the way of support. Both have issues and neither is entirely blameless—it takes two to make a bad marriage—but the sympathies throughout are with Streep's character, which is hammered home by the director and actress in moments of her satisfaction, by having her look directing at the camera for some sort of conspiratorial communal support from the audience ("Ladies...").

A little of that goes a long, long way,* and exposes that the film is geared to a female audience of a certain age and like-minded sympathies. Such pandering mars the film, taking it out of the situation, and, by acknowledging the intended audience, shatters the illusion of reality, making it a staged presentation. They might as well break into song, if this film about commitment isn't going to commit to anything.

* Too far actually, and in the days after watching the film, the feeling that it recalled for me in a previous film experience is Anthony Perkins smiling directly at the camera at the end of Psycho (There are other straight-on shots in the film—Marion driving, the patrolman, Arbogast—but they're usually looking past the audience, eyes unfocused, not directly at the audience).

U.S. Marshals

U.S. Marshals (Stuart Baird, 1998) A sequel to The Fugitive, but where that film's Dr. Richard Kimble had been captured and cleared of the murder of his wife, it would seem a little silly to have him go through the same situations, innocent of another horrible crime with which he's charged. 

Talk about "Double Jeopardy!"

But, Tommy Lee Jones received a much-deserved Oscar for his portrayal of U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard, so if the success of The Fugitive dictated a follow-up, best that it concentrate on Gerard and his team of dedicated if eccentric agents working with him, that made so much of an impact in the earlier film. So, along with Jones, came back Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck, Tom Wood, and LaTanya Richardson Jackson, their wise-cracking timing just as smart-alecky and operating just enough off the rails for "Big Dog" Gerard to rein them in.

But, whereas Gerard in the first film is the active member of a squad seeking to run down a fugitive from justice, here he stumbles into the assignment, accidentally becoming involved in the case in a situation not unlike how the character—with a different first name—was directly, and personally, involved in the escape of the TV "Fugitive." He's part of the deputized contingent escorting prisoners when the transport carrying them suffers a catastrophic accident.

How did he get there? A fugitive-round-up that goes a bit South leading to "excessive force" complaints puts him in dutch with his commander (Kate Nelligan), and as "punishment" he's assigned to escort his prisoners to their holding facility by plane.

Too bad that he doesn't know that the movie's been following a parallel track of following an unrelated investigation into the murder of two Diplomatic Security Service agents trying to stop an exchange of diplomatic secrets. The main suspect of that case is one Mark Roberts (Wesley Snipes), who has been posing as a truck driver but was arrested following a traffic accident. Roberts' fingerprint was found on the scene of that double-murder and now he's being transported on that same plane. Trouble is, he's been targeted for assassination, and that attempt led to the plane crashing. Roberts escapes and Gerard leads the investigation to find him.

He's not alone, though. Along with his usual squad, he's saddled with DSS agent Royce (Robert Downey Jr.), who's a special kind of cocky that just rubs everybody the wrong way, and who's in a big "hurry-up" to apprehend Roberts, even if it means disobeying procedure and going all-cowboy, moves that turn Gerard twenty-five shades of cranky.

While Roberts is working underground to find out why he's been framed, Gerard and crew go to the source to find out about their quarry. Security footage of that double homicide shows two things—that Roberts' actions were self-defense and that he was wearing gloves, contrary to the fingerprint evidence he'd been assured of. But, Gerard being Gerard, he still pursues leads leading to Roberts, while also wanting to find out what the story is. Complications arise to make him double-down on his efforts to find Roberts—who he learns is actually a CIA operative named Mark Sheridan, suspected of trying to sell U.S. intelligence to the Chinese.

Director Stuart Baird started his career in film as an editor—and a great one, at that--editing Tommy, Die Hard 2, and several films of Richard Donner's including The Omen, Superman, and the first two Lethal Weapon films. His first film as director, the Kurt Russell starrer Executive Decision, was a Warner Bros. programmer that proved to be a trial by fire with quarreling actors—only slightly mollified by million dollar pay-checks—and he was able to deliver a fast, furious hijacking drama that had the momentum to keep plot-holes pushed to the backs of audience's minds.*

U.S.Marshals was his second stint in the director's chair** and he had big expectations to fill. The Fugitive had been a big action hit and Baird and his scripter (John Pogue) stacked the film with chases, a couple of spectacular stunts, and shifting narratives and divided loyalties. He also had a bigger canvas--Executive Decision was claustrophobically centered around the interior of a 747 Boeing passenger jet--and he took advantage of it, not only employing varying urban environments, but also Louisiana swamps, even a massive grain freighter.

But, the highlight stunt is one that parallels the "Kimble jumps the dam" sequence in The Fugitive—although appearing much later in its respective film—is Sheridan's jump from the roof-ledge of a building to catch a moving train. It is absolutely ludicrous in imaginable consequences and injuries, but Baird's set-up and editing makes it look plausible...and thrilling...even if Gerard is slow in firing his pistol.

This is the second film for much of the cast and they're all uniformly great.  The only exception being Robert Downey jr. who, frankly, "protests too much" in his role as the square peg in Gerard's posse. Downey is a miracle-worker as an actor, no one could dispute that, but, here, he works against the movie as much as he seems to work against bringing this fugitive in. Where someone in his position should be a bit more low-key, Downey's performance is a grand-stander that immediately puts him in the audience's cross-hairs as somebody "not right." And for all the tsuris his character causes Gerard, you wonder why Deputy Marshal Sam doesn't just keep him out of the way by assigning him clerical work.

 

U.S.Marshals is almost a very good movie, if it didn't stumble so much trying to be as good as The Fugitive, but, unfortunately, it takes a very simple formula and complicates it to no good effect. In raising the stakes, it instead just diminishes the returns.

* For example: Sheridan heals awfully fast—his auto accident at the beginning of the film breaks his arm and puts him in a neck-brace, yet that doesn't seem to slow him down any; "Mythbusters" proved that a Smith & Wesson pistol couldn't shoot out the window of an passenger plane, so a less-powerful zip-gun CERTAINLY shouldn't, which would've stopped the movie in its tracks; and although I appreciate Irène Jacob (as Sheridan's girlfriend) running around in a little black dress, it's absolutely ludicrous that Sheridan would attempt to go on the run with her in the cemetery scene—even if she was wearing sensible shoes.

 
** Baird's third--and so far last—directing effort was the fourth--and last—film featuring the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" cast, Nemesis. He has continued to edit films, most notably two James Bond films of the Daniel Craig era, Casino Royale and Skyfall.

No Country For Old Men

Written at the time of the film's release...

Signs and Wonders

Llewelyn Moss is out on the Texas veldt tracking a caribou he shot, following the blood-trail when it is suddenly crossed by another blood-trail. Following it, he finds a drug-deal gone bad--five vehicles, and several dead Latinos, a truck-bed full of cocaine and eventually a satchel filled with stacks of of money, $10,000 to a stack. Fate is good to him.

Anton Chigurh is hunting, too. He needs a vehicle, and as he's driving a stolen police car, he can pull over anyone he chooses. He walks over to the driver side of the car, carrying a gas canister and a nozzle. "Get out of the vehicle," he says. And the driver complies. "Hold still, please, sir," he says, and the driver complies. He points the nozzle at the man's forehead and fires.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell has been Sheriff of Terrell County since he was 26 years old, and that was a long time ago. You'd think he'd seen everything, but he's beginning to wonder if such a thing is possible. Looking over that drug deal gone bad while horse-back, he surmises the way things went down. "That's very linear, Sheriff," says his deputy. "Age'll flatten a man, Wendell," he not particularly replies.

The first time I'd heard of the Coen Brothers was a Time Magazine review of their first movie Blood Simple. When it wound up being featured at the Seattle Film Festival I went, expecting great things and their quirky ways of telling a story, like that travelling shot (by future director Barry Sonenfeld) that glided over a bar-top, rising up and over a fallen bar-fly. But what I wasn't expecting was a sequence that is one of my favorite in all of film, and is such an obvious thing to do, I wondered why nobody'd thought of it before. Ray has just murdered his lover's husband and stashed him in the back-seat of his car to take him someplace remote to bury him. But as he drives the long, flat Texas highway at night, the corpse behind him moans and moves. He slams on his brakes, pulls to the side of the road and runs...runs in a panic to get away, into a field. He runs into the dark until he stops, panting in fright and exertion. He stands there, looking back at the car. Now what? He's "safe." He got away. but he's no better off than he was before. He has to go back. And he especially has to go back before another car or truck approach and bathe the scene in light.

He has no idea what he'll find when he goes back there, but back he must go. It's the center of the Big Undecipherable that is the heart of the Coen brothers' movies--when people start to ask "how did I get here? And how do I come out, if I can't go back?" There's no going back to Square One with the Coen's. There is only the going-forward, head up or head bowed.

In its way, No Country for Old Men has bits of other Coen movies all over it. The "cat-and-mouse" games of Blood Simple. The airy philosophy of O Brother, Where Art Thou? The sharply written common dialog of all their films. The questioning law officer with philosophical questions of Fargo, the "what's it all worth" tragedy of Miller's Crossing, and Barton Fink. It stands as a good primer for all that is good in their work.

Is it their best work? The "Masterpiece" that it's been touted as? Hard to say. There seems to be a decided effort on their part to NOT make it that, to undercut the impact that the film could have had had they been more direct, hit things on the nose, as they say, rather than leaving things unsaid and perhaps confounding their audience. They've left room for interpretation and controversy, to make one think about the importance of dreams, of Fate and Destiny. One has to review the film that is, not the film that could've been. And No Country, as is, has some exquisite cinematography (by Roger Deakins--night shooting has never looked more convincing or as beautiful as here), note-perfect performances by just about everybody in the cast, but especially all the leads--not just Tommy Lee Jones, and Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, but also Tess Harper (where's she been?), Woody Harrelson, Stephen Root, and Barry Corbin.

What makes No Country for Old Men different from the other Coen movies is a departure from the insular, claustrophobic worlds they have presented in the past. Before the films never strayed beyond the orbits of the main characters of their films--the surroundings filled with extras were there as filler. But this feels like a fuller world, a complete world, where every character has worth and life seems to be going on beyond the frame. That's new, and it will be interesting to see where this aspect of their film-making will take them.

It is not as fully realized a vision as Raising Arizona, or Fargo, or even The Big Lebowski. It is not as accessible as O Brother, Where Art Thou? But it far outshines such experiments in style as Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Man Who Wasn't There, or Intolerable Cruelty. No Country for Old Men is a stellar summing-up of where the Coen's have been, even if it doesn't quite rise above it. But the expanded universe of theirs—the more full world they present here—presages bigger and better films still to come.