You've heard of DOA: Dead On Arrival? This movie is SOA: Stupid On Arrival. It is a monumentally monstrous nightmare. And it's supposed to be. Joel and Ethan Coen are the screenwriters, directors and producers for this so called action/adventure/crime thriller. As usual their real intentions are hidden.

Josh Brolin plays a good old boy war veteran who stumbles on a drug deal gone horribly wrong. While hunting in the unpopulated wilds of Texas he finds a bunch of Mexicans with bullet holes in them, a truck full of dope and a suitcase full of $100 dollar bills. Guess what he decides to do with all that money? Does he get away cleanly? Of course not. That would be the end of the movie.

So now we have the basic set up for the movie. Javier Bardem plays a hitman so malevolent and indestructible he makes Michael Myers from "Halloween" look like a Sunday school teacher with asthma. He and most of the other villains are Mexicans involved in the drug smuggling trade. One thing you have to say about the Coen brothers: they aren't afraid to insult any race, nationality or region. Their flicks usually have stereotypical characters, boobs, and country bumpkins. This time they have a horde of gun toting brown people descending on the good folks of Texas and mowing down anyone or anything in their path. Is this racist? Does the Pope crap in the Vatican? Maybe those minutemen wackos who guard the US border with Mexico should make this their propaganda movie.

The third main character is a sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones. In a switch from his usually omnipotent lawman character, this one is more like a bumbling Barney Fife. Like Fife the sheriff has an active imagination. Unfortunately he is powerless to do anything about what is going on. He's about as effective at catching bad guys as a corpse is at attracting flies. Which is to say that criminals fly all around him but he can't figure out how to swat them out of the air. He would rather sit down wearily with a cup of coffee and wax nostalgic about the Texas of times gone by where some sheriffs didn't even carry a firearm.

You want action, murder and mayhem? Well this gore-fest has it. Frankly it's surprising it didn't get a NC-17 rating.

This movie should come with a set of instructions:

Step 1) When the movie starts shut your brain off and just let the mayhem wash over you.

Step 2) At the end of the flick when the movie's characters start talking about dreams, turn your brain back on.

Most directors and/or screenwriters have plot holes in their action movies because they are too lazy to write logically. Some movies are nonsensical because their makers only care about creating the biggest shocks, scares, and thrills. The Coen brothers have *intentionally* put plot holes in this movie because it is not meant to be real. It is meant to be viewed as a 122 minute nightmare. Figure out what the nightmare is about and you figure out the movie.

--Dan_in_Cincinnati