No Country for Old Men | Javier Bardem, Rodger Boyce | No Country For Old Men, A Poignant Film

No Country for Old Men | Javier Bardem, Rodger Boyce | I actually liked it

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No Country for Old...

	No Country for Old Men Javier Bardem, Rodger Boyce Miramax, 2008 average customer review:based on 568 reviews view larger image
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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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No Country For Old Men, A Poignant Film

*Beware of spoilers within*

I was highly skeptical of this film ever since I heard of the infamous pre-Oscar buzz, because pretty much any movie today that wins any Oscar is mostly due to political reasons and not so much its quality. Well I'm glad to say that this wasn't one of them, I was pleasantly surprised.

The movie starts out with Josh Brolin's character going out into the Texas desert where he stumbles upon this drug deal that's gone terribly wrong. He finds a large stash of cash which he takes, as well as a few guns that are laying around. After this he goes straight home and we find out that he's a simple man who's down on his luck, doesn't have a job and he lives in a trailer home with his wife, so naturally this find was of considerable boost to his otherwise destitute life. From here on out is where his life begins unravelling, unfortunately, as he goes on the run from the hired gun who's out to collect what belongs to the Mexican drug cartel.

What struck me about this film were the performances, first and foremost, particularly fom Javier Bardem who really shined in his role as the evil antagonist Anton Chigurh, he truly steals the show. Josh Brolin does a great job as the unlikely hero Llewelyn Moss, and together him and Javier really cement this film as a tour de force show between the every man vs. great evil, kind of an epic struggle on a minor scale. As soon as Chigurh is introduced, there's no mistaking what he's all about and what he's capable of. He is very cold, mechanical and highly efficient at what he does, yet he lives his life by a set of seemingly arbitrary yet unbending principles revolving around destiny. Chigurh is so incredibly evil, it bothered me far more than any 'Saw' type movie and its ilk. He just oozes the essence of darkness, he is evil personified. The only one that compares would be Hannibal Lecter from 'Silence of the Lambs', and that says quite a bit. He deserved the Oscar for that role, hands down. Even though he's evil, there's a certain kind of respect that he commands, because he's so good at what he does, because of his discipline and dedication, that makes him quite intriguing, which made me wonder about his past and what caused him to be this way. I rooted for Moss the entire film, but I couldn't help being fascinated by this methodic killer on his trail, which made the experience a very haunting and intense ride from beginning to end.

The supporting cast is good too, with solid performances from Woody Harrelson as another mercenary, Barry Corbin as the sheriff's dad and Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff who's hunting both Moss and Chigurh. Despite its theme and related genre, the movie actually works as a humanistic one as well, a look into human nature and our failings, how we too easily succumb to our frailties.

What I liked about this movie is that its cleverness lies in its subtleties, it doesn't clobber people over the head with its messages like some other, supposed masterpieces do. I'm a big believer in less is more, and this movie delivered that in spades, on so many levels. The Cohen brothers clearly know their art form.

This was one of the few movies in which the title plays an extraordinarily large part in the story, it was quite apt and does make one think more about the overall meaning and how it applies to the human race.

I'm sure there are multiple interpretations to this film, but for me it all came home in the final scene where sheriff Ed Tom Bell hangs up his belt and talks about why he can't do it anymore. He's an old man, and he's quitting because he can't take the pain and misery that he sees on a day to day basis, he's fed up and it's just too much at this stage in his life. From his point of view, he's living in a country that doesn't have any room for old peace officers, he's an ancient relic and he needs to retire, because he failed in what he set out to do, and that there is no point in going on if evil wins. This reminds me of an old quote by Edmund Burke who once said that, paraphrasing, all it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing, which fits this movie to a t. If all the kind, decent people like the sheriff become completely apathetic or simply give up fighting against evil, then evil WILL conquer the world, so the movie is a message about tenacity and having the will to fight the good fight, to continue no matter what obstacles lie in the road. Sure, sometimes evil will win and get away scott free, but that's not a good enough reason to throw in the towel, one has to keep on duking it out, because if one does not, then we are all doomed for sure.

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I actually liked it

I'm surprised that I liked this film. I did have to replay the ending to make sure that the DVD hadn't skipped or something. When I sat back to think about the point the film was making, I believe I understood its point. Every generation once it reaches a certain age thinks things are getting worse. The whole 'back in my day' soliloquies we give, but the truth is elusive sometimes. The wickedness of mankind has always been violent. We are the ones that change. Our tolerance, our view of the world and what we think our place is in it. Everyday there is some story in the news that makes absolutely no sense, but in our films we want the motivation spelled out to us. In this piece I think the Coen brothers and McCarthy does a good job in portraying "senseless" violence. Highly recommended.

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Violent and gory but it'll stick with you

Javier Bardem as Chigurh in this movie FREAKED ME OUT. This is a very violent and sometimes just plain gory movie. But Tommy Lee Jones is awesome as the sheriff who, although very savvy, always seems to be one step behind the bad guys... Josh Brolin's character is smart and seems like he can outsmart the psycho killer. The tension in this movie will literally keep you on the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next. You'll be looking in the shadows for a day or two later, just to make sure there's no one there.

For most of it's length, a strong thriller, but hobbled by a divisive ending.

The Coen Brothers, after a decade of middling productions following the (highly overrated, in my opinion) "Fargo", hit a major success in 2007 with their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. It racked up awards, ultimately winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards, among other Oscars. I did not see it until February 2008, when in arrived in theatres on Prince Edward Island.

The film functions on two levels: the first is as a pure thriller, and on that level it is an all-but-unqualified success. The Coens are tremendous filmmakers on a technical level, and so they are able to conjure up a series of stunningly tense set-pieces, pitting various characters against Javier Bardem's stone-cold killer Anton Chigurh. One, particularly, is brilliant: Josh Brolin's character, Llewelyn Mars, sits in his motel room, having found the tracking device placed on his person, and listens as the ominous beeping of the tracking device (which the audience has previously observed in action) approaches: the audience is on pins and needles. A great thriller needs a great villain, and Chigurh is as good a filmic foe as I have seen in many years. He is determined, and his ability to continually keep on the trail of his opponents and absorb pan is almost Schwarzeneggerian. The Coens supply him with some grisly signature weapons as well, from a nasty-looking gun to the prominent air-fired cattlegun. Bardem's performance is quite intimidating. Elsewhere, Josh Brolin and Kelly Macdonald are strong as as his most prominent targets (the latter has a particularly fine scene right at the end).

Then there is the second level, that of a more existential drama, and on that level I am less certain. There are issues of fate, chance, and the like in play here, and the nature of evil (incarnated in Chigurh), and none are really resolved, or, as far as I can see, amount to much. The title refers to Tommy Lee Jones' character's belief that the world is becoming less and less civilized as time passes. However, the movie welcomely bucks this, as Jones' elderly uncle relates that the world has always been a cruel and hard place, and criticizes his 'vanity' at thinking he could really change it. The end is inconclusive, and I could tell that many of the audience in the theatre were not satisfied by the movie's climax (which basically avoids anything climactic). Thematically, the "evil wins" motif is rather banal.

This is a gripping film experience most of the way through, but the ending does not work as the ending of a thriller, and I never found the other themes particularly well-developed; ultimately, I give it three stars; as a thriller, it probably rates as at least a four; as an existential story, I'd lean towards 2.

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