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What does "as good a film as the Coen brothers...have ever made" mean? Does it mean that the film is their best? what is the underlying structure?

Sohrab
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  • @Janus: As it happens, the context of OP's example is *No Country for Old Men is as good a film as...*. But unless I'm much mistaken, your "original" answer doesn't explain why it would be incorrect to have *Psycho* there (because that's not a Coen movie), whereas that would be okay if it were as good a film as any* the Coens have ever made. And to my ear at least, there's nothing wrong with including that any, regardless of whether we're talking about the Coens' NCFOM* or Hitchcock's Psycho. – FumbleFingers Jan 04 '14 at 22:54

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Saying it's as good a film as they've ever made doesn't mean it's necessarily their best, only that it's among their best films.

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The underlying structure of the sentence is as follows:

  • The Coen brothers have made many films.

  • Some of them have been great, some not so great.

  • Among the great ones [you could insert here, say, "Raising Arizona"] has to be one.

Community
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rhetorician
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  • I agree that “Raising Arizona” is a good example, although Roger Ebert instead used “Fargo” for a comparison: «“No Country for Old Men” is as good a film as the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, have ever made, and they made “Fargo.”» – James Waldby - jwpat7 Jan 04 '14 at 18:25