Oscar Review: No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men
Written : Cormac McCarthy(novel) The Coen Brothers (screenplay)
Directed: The Coen Brothers
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin

America has become sort of a rough place. So many films have had specific statments about America, and what it is becoming. Be it Crash with its statement on the racism that still exists after all these years and might be getting worse, or Requiem for a Dream's take on the drug problem in America. All of these films have a clear straight message of how bad America is becoming. No Country For Old Men has a similar message, but it is not clear, and it is not warning of us how bad America will become, it is showing us how bad it was 28 years ago. Leaving us alone to realize how bad it is now. The thing that is most scary about No Country For Old Men is not it's nail biting scenes of suspense that bring a whole new standard to the thriller genre. It is the thing that transcends the thriller genre, transcends the film altogether really, it is the portrayal of the rising violence and insanity in America and how that the picture perfect baby boomer generation of America has now faded into a dark and scary place with little remorse for the lives of others.

The film is about three different men, who are all chasing eachother, rarely interacting head on, if ever. The first is Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) a small time sheriff in West Texas who opens the film with a voiceover about a horrible crime committed by a teenage boy, which compliments the wide open shots of desert. Then we have Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) a vietnam veteran who goes out hunting one day and spots the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad, all that is left is tons of drugs, a pile of dead bodies along with an almost dead body, and a satchel filled with $2 million dollars. Llewelyn takes the money, ignoring the pleas of the last man alive who is begging for water. Later his guilt gets the best of him and he drives back to the scene only to be discovered and shot at by a third party checking out the drug deal. He ditches his truck, gets his wife out town, and starts hiding but now they have access to all his information and have send someone to get their money back. That man is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) a purported hitman who personifies unstoppable evil, Anton is not in this for the money, he is in it for the hunt, the money being a nice bonus. Anton sadistically kills people for little to no reason going as far to even kill some of his own allies. His weapons of choice are a cattle gun, a gigantic silenced shotgun, and a coin. Anton flips the coin on those he is not sure he needs to kill, allowing them to choose their own fate. It as almost as if that he has to leave it up fate, since no matter what he is driven to kill them, he can't make the decision despite what one of his victims claims otherwise. He is literally a killing machine.

So the film focuses on these three men, waiting until the end to reveal who the movie is really about. In between the opening and the last 15 minutes or so we are treated to one of the best suspense thrillers to come out since Silence of the Lambs. One of the more effective factors is how the film features no music at all, creating eery silence, unlike most films today that have a score trying to add an exclamation point on every scene. The silence here provides such an intense viewing experience when you first see it, that I already miss not knowing what is going to happen. For violence junkies the film will please you as well, Anton Chigurh pulls off some very nasty kills here. One thing that has annoyed me about the recent praise of No Country For Old Men is people claiming that "this is what the Coens do best" I highly disagree, while Fargo and Miller's Crossing are both classics in their own right they shouldn't always be considered the Coen's best. As a person whose favorite Coen film is Barton Fink I can say that No Country easily surpasses it and IS the Coen's most well written and directed film. From what I hear the script is a word for word adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel besides some small improvements or making specific things a little less clear. The movie has some great dialog, mostly coming from Anton and Sheriff Bell who both have long monologues at different points showing the duality of their two different sides.

When the film comes to a close and the real message is revealed, when we finally see why it is called No Country For Old Men that is when the film easily rises above whatever limitations the thriller genre has and becomes a much more horrifying movie. Let me just restate the film is set in 1980, if things were bad then, what kind of country are we in now?

9.8/10