Jan 16 2008
“No Country For Old Men” (2007)
Movie Review: No Country for Old Men
Directed by: The Coen Brothers (Joel and Ethan)
Screenplay Written By: The Coen Brothers (Joel and Ethan)
Released (US): November 2007
I don’t know about everyone else, but when the Coen brothers make a new movie it’s always a treat for me. There are few directors out there that have ever been so solid and diverse thematically. I love the way their realities seem ride close to ours, almost identical yet distinctly “off”. It’s subtle for sure, but it’s always kept my attention and intense interest.
Their recent offering “No Country for Old Men”, based off of the Cormac McArthy novel of the same name, is a juggernaut of a film. It shows the Coens at, in my opinion anyways, their best. Everything in this film is a star, the actors, the writing, the landscapes (awe inspiring on the big screen… seriously), the locales, the music, the cinematography, the pacing of the film, everything… it’s all top notch.
For the first half of the film it follows the story of a local cowboy/retired welder, Llewelyn Moss. This guy is probably the toughest damn cowboy type that I’ve seen in ages. Quiet, resourceful, brooding, yet compassionate, he really grabs the screen with a choke hold and doesn’t let go. Played brilliantly by Josh Brolin, there’s this silent charisma on the screen that causes you to really root for the guy, even if you can’t really understand or relate to his plight. It all begins with Llewelyn out on a hunting trip in the wastelands, where he stumbles upon a drug deal that’s gone horribly wrong. Everyone (including their dogs) and everything, has at least three bullet holes in it. Nothing breathes accept the wind and some poor hispanic thug, which Llewelyn isn’t getting a lick of information from, due to his lack of skill in the spanish dialect. He pokes around investigates the site thoroughly and eventually falls upon a blood trail that heads away from the site.
Following the trail he comes upon a man slumped dead against a tree, a real shiny hand gun, and a suit case: filled with a million dollars cash.
And there in lies the crux of the film, the decision to take the money, or to just leave it where it sits. Llewelyn takes it and what follows are the repercussions of that decision.
Nothing is ever simple when you take a million dollars of cash that isn’t yours, this story is no different. The site of the drug deal eventually calls the attention of the local authorities as well as the attention of the real owners of the money. The local sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones, (in top form after what seems like an eternity. Seriously if there are any good Tommy Lee Jones movies that showed up in the last decade, please comment below. I’ve missed the guy) who plays the “tired old sheriff with thoughts of retirement” with such grace, that he ends up being the my favorite character of the film. Just looking at his face tells you so much, there’s a sadness deep within him, a need to understand everything he’s seen and seeing now. His quest to find Llewelyn and the bad guys that want him dead seems to slowly wring him out like an old dish towel, frayed, thread bare, but still useful. Seriously, Jones’ Sheriff Ed Tom Bell just amazing in this film.
Yet there are others as well whose performances pin your eyeballs to the screen, which is often typical in Coen brothers film.
A lot of attention in the trailers for the movie was placed on the maniac that is hired to find Llewelyn and retrieve the money he stole. There’s definitely cause for this attention, for up until now I haven’t seen an adversary of this caliber on screen in, well, I can’t remember when. His name is “Anton Chigurh”, he’s a hired “cleaner” of sorts and he has a tool box of incredibly creative weapons to fix the problems he is paid to resolve. From the first few minutes on screen, you realize this guy is not some suave hitman that kills with grace and a smirk. No, he’s something else entirely. He’s a force of nature, without conscience, without pretense; an utter inevitability.
Played by Javier Bardem, a guy who I haven’t seen in any film before this one, he’s the human equivelent of the grim reaper, and he literally owns the screen whenever he strolls quietly into frame. Seriously folks, some of his scenes are and will be forever iconic. It’s a rarity when I murmur “Oh shit…” out loud in the theatre, I think I did it thrice while watching this. Both were earned by Bardem’s performance. If he doesn’t break out in North America, let alone the world, from this film? I don’t know what will do it for him. I know I won’t forget the guy.
Other performances that are secondary but are no less inspiring, are by Woody Harrelson who nails the role of a hitman that shares the same job as the maniac Chigurh. He’s ruthless as well, but he’s cocky and more eloquent. He’s also no match for who he’s been hired to stop. Very well played indeed and again, like Jones, it’s nice to Harrelson get a good role for him to sink his teeth into (though I loved him in Scanner Darkly).
Another performance worth mentioning is by Kelly Macdonald, who I saw first, years ago in “Gosford Park”, but hadn’t seen since. She plays the role of Llewelyn’s wife and in the hands of any other actress, I think it would’ve come off insincere and cheap. She strikes that delicate balance between gentle strength and pure innocence. She’s been forced by proxy into a situation that is WAY over her head and it’s delivered perfectly. You really feel for her. Kudos to Macdonald for pulling it off with so little screen time.
It’d be easy to write this film off as an extremely well made and acted story about good versus evil. But it’d be careless to do so. It’s lot more than that, when you get right down to it, it’s about the evil that men do and how you deal with it, or if you really even can. A lot of fans have bitched about the ending of the film and how abrupt it was. It’s a monologue delivered by Jones’ character, I won’t spoil it, but I thought it was perfect. Just perfect! Hands down, the Coen’s hit this one out of the park folks! A friend of mine, who loved the film, challenged me to name a movie that I saw this year that was better.
I was seriously hard pressed to do so.
