I like the cover.  Three faces on top, the one in the middle (Javier Bardem) darkly but fully lit, the other two (Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin) on either side, also darkly lit, but also half in dark shadow.  Looks like Cerberus, with its three heads, all staring evilly at us.  Or a bouquet of deadly flowers tightly wrapped and ready to be delivered.  Bardem is the only one with the correct name under his mug.

This film pretty much swept across the top ten lists for 2007.  At the NBR awards ceremony in January, all three of the cover guys were up on stage to receive the ‘ensemble’ award, and Josh Brolin apparently had been elected to make the acceptance speech.  After extolling the Coen Bros. untainted off-Hollywood ethos, he suddenly interjected “What that third act was all about?”  Which brought the house down, including the Coens themselves, who were sitting at a table up front.

No one’s been able to adequately explain to me what that third act meant, though some have indicated that it worked more clearly in Cormac McCarthy’s novel.  What it did for me, and most people I know, was to undercut everything that had preceded it, slow down the film’s momentum, and leave us unsatisfied.  All the more amazing that it garnered the copious praise it has.  Was it a weak year at the movies?  Were the critics uncharacteristically forgiving, considering that the first two acts were brilliantly effective?  I’ll be wondering about that for a long time.

Brolin plays a luckless south-westerner who happens upon a drug deal gone to hell, and a cache of greenbacks beyond his wildest dreams.  So naturally, even after he becomes aware that an avenging force is after the loot, and his blood, he continues on, applying his army smarts to stay ahead of the guy and perhaps even inflict a mortal blow.  Along the way, everyone else who gets in the serial killer’s way is summarily dispensed with, right up until that infuriating third act. 

Everything about the film is terrific, except…but do I need to mention that again?  The cinematography by Roger Deakins is gorgeous even while it is menacing.  And a more diverse palate this year could not have been produced, considering his completely different, equally remarkable work on THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD.  Coen Bros. standard Carter Burwell is along to keep the music where it belongs and keep it effective.  And Scott Rudin certainly produces with his usual panache, giving them complete aesthetic freedom to conjure their magic out of celluloid acetate.

Of the three mini-docs included as supplements, the third one – “Diary of a Country Sheriff” – sheds the most light on what’s up with that third act.  Focusing on Tommy Lee Jones’ character, it helps flesh out a figure who is unable to comprehend what’s becoming of his world in the late ‘70s/80s Texas as the drug dealers flock across the border, bringing with them untold levels of nihilistic violence.  Jones’ Sheriff Bell is described as the main character, but the way the film plays out, he really isn’t, and perhaps that’s the problem.  Bardem is the story’s centerpiece, and Brolin is the satellite circling around him.  Jones, bewildered and aging, seems to be hovering way off on the periphery of the narrative, and when the climax comes, and we expect him to finally play an active part, justifying his inclusion in the film, he remains ancillary, even receding further out of the active plot.  But the mini-doc did indeed shed light.   Now I know what they were trying to do.