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The Coen brothers make their finest thriller since Fargo with a restrained adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. Not that there aren't moments of intense violence, but No Country for Old Men is their quietest, most existential film yet. In this modern-day Western, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet who could use a break. One morning while hunting antelope, he spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies (both human and canine). In examining the site, he finds a case filled with $2 million. Moss takes it with him, tells his wife (Kelly Macdonald) he's going away for awhile, and hits the road until he can determine his next move. On the way from El Paso to Mexico, he discovers he's being followed by ex-special ops agent Chigurh (an eerily calm Javier Bardem). Chigurh's weapon of choice is a cattle gun, and he uses it on everyone who gets in his way--or loses a coin toss (as far as he's concerned, bad luck is grounds for death). Just as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a World War II vet, is on Moss's trail, Chigurh's former colleague, Wells (Woody Harrelson), is on his. For most of the movie, Moss remains one step ahead of his nemesis. Both men are clever and resourceful--except Moss has a conscience, Chigurh does not (he is, as McCarthy puts it, "a prophet of destruction"). At times, the film plays like an old horror movie, with Chigurh as its lumbering Frankenstein monster. Like the taciturn terminator, No Country for Old Men doesn't move quickly, but the tension never dissipates. This minimalist masterwork represents Joel and Ethan Coen and their entire cast, particularly Brolin and Jones, at the peak of their powers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Most helpful customer reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stark and Bleak Realism,
By Verve (Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: No Country for Old Men (DVD)
This is not an easy movie to watch - it is rife with tension and gore - but it is a thought-provoking one. With stark and bleak realism, it shows what can happen when criminals clash with other criminals, law-enforcers, crafty wild cards, and naive bystanders sucked into the criminal vortex. It shows what can happen when a relatively good man succumbs to the temptation to take an illegal route out of poverty, and, crafty though he is, finds himself up against a diabolically smart and ruthless sociopath - someone not likewise burdened by such distractions as a conscience or concern for loved ones. It shows how utterly cold a sociopath can be, and what a trail of destruction he can leave in his wake. Nothing is glossed here. The good guys are not better shots. Bodies do not conveniently disappear. Killings are not veiled or glorified or antiseptic, but graphic, tragic, and messy. Unlike so many action movies, this one does not lean on a punchy soundtrack or quick scene changes to heighten its impact. Rather, it moves in relative real time, and its quietness and its unblinking stare at events are quite dramatic enough. The ending is atypical, too - more of a whimper than a bang - and I think that to be disappointed by this is to miss the movie's point. In this movie, brutality is not depicted as rollicking entertainment, but as the messy, ugly, unfair, disgusting, and just plain depressing thing that it is.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best movie of 2007,
By
This review is from: No Country for Old Men (DVD)
Having read and enjoyed the book, I was looking forward to seeing the movie. After hearing all the critical praise let me tell you that it's all true. The acting is flawless with Javier Bardem being one of the most bone chilling villains in recent film history. A lot of this movie is unconventional but that's what makes it great.
Go see it!
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Respectable Interpretation of Novel,
By Ian Gordon Malcomson (Victoria, BC) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: No Country for Old Men (DVD)
What's the power these days of a well-written novel like Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Man"? Basically, the capacity to re-invent itself as a blockbuster movie with few alterations of the plot. Here is a list of my observations about the quality of the movie version of what I consider to be a very finely-crafted psychological thriller. The big question, as always, is does the movie do justice to its predecessor in terms of making vital connections?
A. The movie's poignant portrayal of the arid Southwest lands captures the same feeling of a moral wasteland that served McCarthy so well as the setting for his story. The viewer quickly gets the idea that nothing good can come out of this bleak landscape; B. The movie presents a visceral picture of violence in action. As in the novel, it attempts to display it as both an arbitrary and ruthless behaviour being acted in a wildwest fashion. The law is always around in a philosophical capacity but never really engaged in physically protecting the innocent. McCarthy, in all his works, sees the world as a battle for the survival of the fittest. C. The movie does a reasonable job in following the storyline of a man named Moss who comes across cache of $2.4 million dollars in drug money while hunting in the desert. The surrounding circumstances of the find and the battle that ensues between various characters to hold on or seize the loot are downright ugly and violent. D. The movie gives the sheriff a similar contemplative role where wisdom, rather than valour, becomes the means by which people can sometimes reach old age. Tommy Lee Jones captures that mood very effectively in his layback role as the sheriff who is moving into retirement without too much regret. E. The movie does a faithful job in typecasting the roles of the psychopath(Bardem) and bounty hunter(Harrelson). Javier Bardem, as Chigurh(sounds like sugar), comes across as that brooding character that deeply embodies evil while thinly cloaked in disarming pleasantness. Life for Chigurh comes down to killing others in order to get the money. There is that curious moment, however, in the film when Chigurh is seriously down on his luck and has to pay some kids to help him get away. F. The movie, like the novel, refrains from providing closure for its audience. For McCarthy, any sense of justice comes from the evil that bad people bring on themselves by hurting other people. Unfortunately, there are no winners in this bloody fray except those who choose to say out of it.
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