Review and Analysis - Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited

Cormac McCarthy is considered one of America's best novelists of this generation. Let's be clear; being one of America's best novelists of this generation, is like being the executive vice president of a company with eight people. It's a nice title, but it's not really worth much. McCarthy has been around for a while, but not until the Coen brothers came out with No Country For Old Men, did he become a household name to anyone not professing to be living in the literary world.  I've never sat down and read any of his novels, but I've read enough excerpts to know, he's Americana and if you're anything like me, you know this is a kind word for crapola. It's bubble gum and Coca-Cola, collecting license plates and going to tag sales. It's what rich white kids write poems about, thinking they've invented the wheel, but not realizing those wheels were once made of wood, maybe even stone. McCarthy has a way with words that impresses the easily impressed. The Coen brothers made him look like a genius.

So, the movie version of The Sunset Limited came across my eye and I rented, more for someone else than for me. Somewhat hoping they'd see what I saw, without ever knowing what I would see. But I did. When your consumed and impressed by mediocrity, because of the writer, you think everything they touch is powerful, rich and deep. It is none of this. What it is, quite simply, is a lot of repetitive gibberish. The play is 90 minutes long, where three things are told. God is good, there is no god and why are we alive (to serve god or to be a cog). Now this might sound like a profound battle between theology and mere existence, but it's not. It's not even close and this will eat at you for exactly three minutes after it is over. The time, it took me, to fill my cup and slice a piece of cheese.

Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L Jackson star in this version and let's be honest. For most of us, this is a can't miss duo and I'll admit they are fun to watch. There are moments of levity, not so carefully rammed in between the supposed serious stuff. Now, some will say "you obviously didn't get it" and maybe I didn't, but more often than not, this isn't the case. This was bad, not because the subject matter, but because of how it plays out. The key problem is, if we're to believe what we see, Samuel Jackson is being played the entire play, because non-belief always wins, because it has no rules. There in lies the biggest problem and the biggest misunderstanding. Non-believers, who are devoted to their shunning of organized religion, have a much harder time quantifying their beliefs, because there is no scale of goodness for them to measure up to. Believers, simply go by whichever book they choose to believe in and when faced at the crossroads, go whichever way they believe is just, knowing confession and repenting is available, should they stumble. Non-believers, have regret, failure and must live with the consequences and they build.

Much like writing, which quite possibly this play could be a metaphor for, this looks at two paths. The one that can be corrected through faith and the one that needs black and white answers, The battle of course, is that those with intense faith, foolishly believe their choices are black and white, based on righteousness, when in fact, it is simply dumb luck whether or not their actions work out. Non-believer, realize it's about acquiring information and then making a decision and each wrong decision is time wasted. Sure we learn from it, but that isn't in this play.

The reality is, nothing is in this play. It's belief in a life saved and belief that life can't be saved, because it's all about what happens after. The problem is, and some might say this is the brilliance of the play, is that the one who wants the after, isn't the one it's supposed to be. Or is it?