Imagine being invited to the home of some friends for dinner.  You look forward to it, because you've eaten with them before.  It's always a good time, an eating adventure; you never know what they'll have cooked up for you.  So, you arrive and are greeted at the door by a uniformed butler.  You're ushered into a gorgeous dining room with a roaring fire in the fireplace and crystal chandeliers hanging from the twelve foot ceilings.  A waiter offers you a drink and a plate of crudités. 

"This is great!" you think to yourself.  Your hosts are charming and witty, as always.  The conversation is interesting and funny.  The table is set with the most exquisite china and silver.  Waterford crystal wine glasses are at each place.  The napkins are embroidered Irish linen.  It's spectacular.

In the midst of all this enjoyment, the waiter returns, this time offering coffee and mints.  You're sipping your coffee when it suddenly occurs to you that something is wrong.  Something is missing.  Deep inside a part of you starts to panic.  Did you miss something?  Did something crucial happen while you were looking the other way? Sure enough, the next thing you know, your hosts are offering you your coat and showing you the door.  You smile, shake hands and exit, but on the inside you're screaming "Where the bleep was my dinner??!"

Would it matter that the drinks were perfect, the hors d'oeuvres tasty and the company charming, if in the end, no dinner were served at the dinner party?  It would indeed.  You would feel cheated.  Put upon.  Duped.  No amount of charming conversation would make up for the growling hole in your stomach.  You wouldn't drop your friends, but you certainly wouldn't remember that as one of their better parties.

That's how I felt after watching No Country For Old Men.

I like the Coen brothers a lot.  I was looking forward to seeing this movie and I was impressed by most of it.  There's not a lot of talk, but there are a lot of good lines.  The performances are excellent.  There is no score, which helped to make many scenes edge-of-your-seat tense.  You think it's really good and then it's over and you realize

THERE'S NO STORY HERE.

You think there's a story, but it just unravels.  You think the different threads are going to come together but they don't.  You think (hope) that there's going to be some kind of resolution to some part of this thing but there isn't.

For my money, all the craft in the world doesn't make up for a movie with no plot any more than the most beautifully set table  in the world makes up for serving no food at dinner.

I revoke the Oscar.

 

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