It seems that the consensus of opinion is that this is another masterful work by the Coen Bros, but it left me disappointed. In a nutshell it felt to me that they never got the movie together.
The story has some intriguing elements - the young girl seeking revenge, her character, her choice of Rooster as the hunter; Rooster himself; the Labouef character and his contrast with Rooster; the nature of the villain (before he is seen);and the usual thrill of a chase. But somehow all these fine elements didn't ever seem to come together - I kept waiting for it to happen and it never did except in the most slap-dash and corny way. Even the last scene failed to ring true: it was possible to suspend disbelief over Mattie's character for the sake of letting the young actress show her stuff and the director to add a curious dimension to the character, but in the end I didn't care about her at all.
There was a real tension being built up to the confrontation with the villain but from then on the move just seemed to run out of gas and depend on clichés to get it thru to the down-beat ending.
Cinematography was excellent, script was good, cast was good, but somewhere in there the directors lost interest and failed to do a professional job of making a movie.
The story has some intriguing elements - the young girl seeking revenge, her character, her choice of Rooster as the hunter; Rooster himself; the Labouef character and his contrast with Rooster; the nature of the villain (before he is seen);and the usual thrill of a chase. But somehow all these fine elements didn't ever seem to come together - I kept waiting for it to happen and it never did except in the most slap-dash and corny way. Even the last scene failed to ring true: it was possible to suspend disbelief over Mattie's character for the sake of letting the young actress show her stuff and the director to add a curious dimension to the character, but in the end I didn't care about her at all.
There was a real tension being built up to the confrontation with the villain but from then on the move just seemed to run out of gas and depend on clichés to get it thru to the down-beat ending.
Cinematography was excellent, script was good, cast was good, but somewhere in there the directors lost interest and failed to do a professional job of making a movie.