2000's Bracket, Round 1, Match 5- 5) No Country For Old Men vs. 28) American Psycho

May 2024 · 7 minute read

Clearly your trying change the topic in an attempt to belittle me with personal attacks, but I never said that. I said that I didn't care if people agreed with me or not, and I said that people that tend to say that NCFOM is stupid or overrated probably haven't even see the movie or probably didn't understand the movie from the beginning.


Please explain to me how that is a personal attack?

And that is what you said. Read your little multiple choice thingy again. You claim that if someone doesn't like "No Country for Old Men", then that automatically means they either do not ‘understand’ it, they were just flat out lying when they say they watched the film, or that they jumped on some bandwagon. That’s actually an attack to every poster who doesn't like “No Country for Old Men”. What I said was not an attack, just mentioning your name about a sentence you had made. There was no insult to it.

But, okay, you find what I’m saying as a way to getaway from the topic, fine.. let me break it down how “American Psycho” fucking slaughters “No Country for Old Men” in every fucking way imaginable.

Let’s look at the three key features in qhat makes a great movie.

Acting – Please answer who actually acted a single role in “No Country for Old Men” well? You have James Brolin just running around like a jackass and barely saying anything the entire movie. There was no fire in him whatsoever, and his selling was absolute crap. Then you have Javier Bardem, which all he does is walk around with a cool gun, and talks with a freakishly deep voice. That’s it. Pauly fucking Shore could’ve done that. Anyone could. It took no acting ability to do what he did. He just had the right look for the part. So, that’s the main two, and the other actors hardly do anything. Woody Harrellson didn’t do anything worth noting; Brolin’s wife was alright, but I couldn’t get over how fucking young she looked; and Tommy Lee Jones didn’t do shit except bore the absolute fuck out of people. So, there’s the acting in that movie. Now let’s look at the acting in “American Psycho”, shall we?

Of course, I don’t really need to praise Christian Bale because I’m sure everyone who votes for “No Country for Old Men” will all at least admit that Bale is fantastic in “American Psycho”. With that said, I would like to know that even if you disagree with my observations of the acting in “No Country for Old Men”, can you really sit there and say there is one performance in “No Country for Old Men” that is as good as Bale’s performance in “American Psycho”? If so :disappointed: . Now, lets look at the supportive roles. First, you have Reese Witherspoon as Evelyn. Small role, but I thought she did a wonderful job capturing the feel I got from Evelyn in the book as such a stuck-up, snotty bitch, who, for whatever reason, is head over heels in love with Patrick Bateman, even though she obviously has a flirtacious relationship with Tim. Then you have Chloe Sevigny, who’s great in pretty much everything I’ve seen her in, and this was no exception with her role as Jean, Patrick’s secretary. At first, I thought she wasn’t right for the role because when I read the book, I pictured someone much more beautiful then she is, but she made me a believer with her performance (plus, when you think about it, Patrick probably exaggerates the hotness of every woman in the book). You could really sense that she was into Patrick, and her shyness around him and how sweet she was, was fantastic and just like the feeling I had for the secretary in the book. And I thought Justin Theroux, Jared Leto, and Matt Ross all did extremely well in their respective roles. The only role I was dissatisfied with was William Defoe’s, who I’m actually a big fan of. I just didn’t really like the way he portrayed the detective.

Writing – I’m not going to sit here and lie and say I read the book that is based on “No Country for Old Men”, but I did see the movie twice and the writing is garbage. Maybe it’s better in the book, but there is nothing clever about this movie. Nothing. The only shit that I thought was good with the writing from this movie was the scene with the fat old bitch, and the scene with Brolin’s wife’s mother when she was continuously whining, but that was it. The rest of the dialogue, which there was hardly any of, was absolute crap, and you don’t feel anything for the characters. They’re just there, and they do nothing to make you hope they survive.

“American Psycho” is a completely different story. It actually has witty dialogue. It actually gets you caught up in a character. It makes you laugh, feel sad, get grossed out, the whole nine. It makes you feel every single emotion, like every good movie should. My only problem with the writing, like I already mentioned, was the secretary Jean finding Patrick’s notebook. That made absolutely no sense because the entire movie is suppose to be from Patrick’s perspective. But, that is its one and only flaw, if you ask me. Harron did a great job writing on this picture overall. Like I said earlier, I especially loved how she was able to fit in the music reviews into the movie by having Patrick recite them right before he kills someone. I thought that was fucking genius.

Direction : The look of “No Country for Old Men” was nothing to accomplish. The action sequences, if you can even call them that, did nothing to blow your mind. It was a basic movie to direct. I’m sure there was no trouble putting this crap together. It was a very simple movie to make. Anyone with experience could’ve pretty much pull it off.

“American Psycho”, on the other hand, was an extremely hard movie to make. First, you had to give some sort of justice to the book, while maintaining an R Rating. I feel Mary Harron accomplished that. Then, you have to capture the look of the book, which was basically very high class 1980s and she did a TREMENDOUS job with that. The wardrobe in the film, the restaurants, Patrick’s house, the clubs, his job they all looked absolutely perfect, and Harron deserves the credit for that. What she did for this movie was a great, great accomplishment. What the Coen Brothers did with "No Country for Old Men" was nothing to brag about. There's no comparison between the job Harron did with "American Psycho" and what the Coen Brothers did with "No Country for Old Men". None whatsoever.

So, that it’s for the ‘Big 3’ when it comes to movie making. But you can also add that “American Psycho” had the much better ending, “American Psycho” had awesome music and “No Country for Old Man” didn’t have any (although I did find that aspect of the film kind of cool, but soundtracks do count for something), among other things. “American Psycho” is just the superior film. In all aspects, it really is and that’s the reason why “American Psycho” has gotten more love then “No Country for Old Men” at this forum. It’s not because people are too stupid to understand what “No Country for Old Men” is about, or that we’re all lying when we said we watched it and thought it was boring and dumb, or that we're just agreeing to agree with the normal opinion about the film. It’s because “American Psycho” is the more entertaining, well put together film to us, anyway.

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