No Country for Old Men 2007 Directed by: Ethan and Joel Coen Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson

Written by: Jeremy Welsch AKA The Rub December 24, 2007

“It’s a mess, ain’t it, sheriff?” – Wendall

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. 
A welder, a hired gun, and an almost retired sheriff walk into a West Texas town.  Each of the men is running.  What they are running from, and toward quietly become the foundation for the tapestry brilliantly woven in this, the best movie of the year. 

No Country for Old Men is the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, adapted from the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy.  The movie actually tells a fairly simple story.  Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) opens the movie with a voiceover, explaining basically why he is soon to be retired.  The times of the job have passed him by as the region, and the world, has become increasingly violent beyond his understanding.  Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), the welder, happens on a collection of corpses and a dying Mexican in the apparent aftermath of a drug deal long since soured.  He finds a case with $2 million cash and takes it home. 

Meanwhile, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), the hired gun, has just escaped police custody and stolen a car after killing the car’s driver.  Chigurh’s introduction accomplishes two things.  One, it introduces his unique weapon of choice he uses throughout the movie, and establishes an instantly classic movie villain.  He does what he feels he must do in any given situation without having prior knowledge of that situation before he finds himself entangled in it; almost as if to operate with a random calculation.  His methods are cold and brutal but to him, justified.  Moss finds the cash and soon realizes he is being chased for it, Chigurh is the man hired to get the money back, and Sheriff Bell is the man trying to make sense of the whole bloody affair.

In less capable hands, this movie could have easily fallen victim to the gruesomely tired cliché of “someone chasing someone for money after a drug deal gone bad”.  In fact, when non-movie watching friends ask me what is my favorite movie of the year and I tell them about No Country, they inevitably ask, “What is it about?”  My answer is usually met with complacency.  Because to simply explain the plot of this movie doesn’t serve it its proper justice.  This is the type of movie that you actually have to see and watch the story unfold. 

What is the difference between a good movie and a great movie?  What makes a great movie, classic?  In short, it has to engage the audience.  Yes, story, performances, direction to be sure, but what really makes a movie like No Country for Old Men work so well is how it flows.  The pacing on this movie is pitch-perfect.  There doesn’t seem to be one wasted minute of film here and every scene serves a purpose for the greater good of the story.  I am happy almost any time I see a movie that doesn’t automatically jump to the quick cut, MTV style of instant editing.  Sometimes that is fine, but to make a remarkable and lasting impression, I want the story to unfold on its own – almost in real time.  That is the only way to truly build tension properly.  No Country not only does accomplishes that to an almost perfect degree, it does so with such ease that you don’t even realize it until after the movie is over.

The movie is more than cat and mouse.  Chigurh and Moss carry the movie by showing how they handle their own desperation within the story.  As Chigurh gets closer to him, Moss begins to almost inhabit the characteristics of his pursuer.  He loses sight of what started him down this path to begin with and gets caught up in a world that is obviously over his head.  If only he were as aware just how much he is not cut out for this lifestyle.  Chigurh, on the other hand, was born to inhabit this life.  There is a great line by James Gandolfini in True Romance where he is explaining to Patricia Arquette what it feels like to kill a person.  He explains the first few times had a real impact on him but, “Now… shit.  Now I do it just to watch their fuckin' expression change.”  You get the feeling that Chigurh operates under that same school of thought, only a few classes ahead of Gandolfini’s character.  There is no other scene in the movie where this is more evident than when he goes into the gas station and talks to the store owner.  You feel the tension of that entire scene and know that had the coin toss ended differently, he would have carried out whatever came to him in that moment without a second’s hesitation.  But the whole time, he just toys with him until he becomes bored of the whole conversation.  That smugness should not be mistaken for instability but rather again, the random calculations of a cold-blooded killer.  And Bardem plays him perfectly without going over the top. 

This movie isn’t about who did what to whom and how, but about why.  Sheriff Bell, Moss, and Chigurh do everything they do in the movie in the name of one thing: justice.  Maybe greed initiated each of their respective journeys, but justice is what made them try to finish.  What makes that concept interesting is that while each man is motivated by the same thing, each of them has a vastly disproportionate idea of what that means.

There is a lot of ambiguity in the last 20 minutes of the movie.  Why didn’t more happen in the hotel when Sheriff Bell went in by himself at the end?  What really happened to Moss’ wife when Chigurh finally showed up?  All that is fine; the story works better when everything isn’t spelled out and packaged for us.  Viewer interpretation and continued debate is just another reason this movie has been, and will continue to be talked about for months to come.  The ending of the movie is perfect – a great companion and bookend to the whole story – even if it took me a few days to think so.

The Rub:
Sometimes a movie comes along that simply blows you away.  After I first saw it, I couldn’t shake it for a long time.  It stays with you not because you are trying to figure it all out (although that may be part of it), but like any piece of great work, you appreciate the story and how it is told.  Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and yes, even Josh Brolin all deserve Oscar nods for this film.  That will go nicely with the Best Director and Best Picture nominations they are almost guaranteed to get.  This is not only the best film of the year, but the best film the Coen Brothers have ever made, and they made Fargo.  So that’s got to count for something, right?

And there’s the rub.

Without a doubt, No Country for Old Men, the latest offering from the dynamic duo of Ethan and Joel Coen, is one of the best films of 2007. Operating on a much broader level than a gritty crime/pseudo chase flick and with far more resonance, it’s not just entertainment -- it’s art.

The movie takes place in Texas, where a local man named Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles onto the scene of a drug deal gone very bad—dead bodies, a truckload of heroin, and a briefcase full of cash. This is an unexpected windfall for our hero. Unable to resist, he grabs the loot and heads for the Mexican border. A number of men pursue him, the chief of which is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a cold-eyed sociopath who wields an oxygen tank and a cattle gun.

Important universal themes are at work in this film: chance vs. fate; the concept of the hero’s “tragic flaw” (greed); and justice vs. injustice. But it’s chance vs. fate which forms the core here, symbolically represented by Anton’s penchant for tossing a coin to determine a given situation’s outcome—heads or tails, live or die. And “chance” leads Llewellyn to shoot at and miss an antelope but hit the jackpot -- $2 million in a briefcase.

Working in concert with chance vs. fate is the concept of the hero’s “tragic flaw,” a character trait causing him to take actions or make decisions that inevitably lead to his downfall. Greed and opportunity induce Llewellyn to grab the loot. Oddly, though, if Llewellyn left it at that, he would have escaped undetected. What seals his fate is his sense of misplaced compassion.

“No Country for Old Men,” set in gritty, ugly country, also appears peopled with gritty, ugly people who are engaged in gritty, ugly business. The only “good” people? Llewellyn’s confused wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald), her mother, Agnes (one of my favorites, Beth Grant), assorted innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire, and of course, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones).

Because of this type of setting, realism assumes major importance here. The story takes place in a desert town near the Mexican border, and there’s nothing glamorous about the townspeople or the atmosphere. The terrain is rough, the temperature is hot. There’s violence and blood, as one would expect given the plot. The director doesn't spare your sensibilities. You feel the dirt and grime under your nails, sand and dust on your clothing, the heat on your back, and the sweat tricking down your face.

When I watch movies, I always ask myself, “Can the story, the drama, and the acting “speak” on it’s own without the aid of music?” In this case, the answer is a resounding YES. The Coen brothers’ camera gives us long shots of wide open, barren desert, so I don't need any music to establish the mood or cue me on how to respond. I feel small and insignificant in that vast expanse of land. I sense the isolation. The quiet, except for the rustling of the wind, the threat of thunder in the distance, and the crunch of tires on parched earth, is unnerving. The cinematography on its own can give one the creeps. Using background music in those scenes would have robbed the movie of its punch.

As the hunt begins, the location and camera shots change, paralleling the plot and the hero’s psychological state. In the beginning, we see many long shots. Llewellyn, at this point, is anonymous. Nobody knows where the money is, nobody knows he took it. The camera work emphasizes the “space” he has to move around in and maneuver. But then Anton learns his identity and gives chase, and Llewellyn runs for the border. From the wide open spaces of the desert to the confined space of dingy hotel rooms and corresponding tightly framed shots, Llewellyn’s wiggle room shrinks as Anton bears down on him.

Performances of the principal players appear stripped down and powerful. These are people of few words (particularly Javier Bardem’s character Anton), so those words must be delivered with conviction. Moreover, the actors’ faces and body language must speak as well. Josh Brolin gives us the best work of his career so far. Avarice, greed, and later as the film progresses, desperation and fear, are etched into his rough-hewn features.

Tommy Lee Jones, as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, faces the difficult task of bringing substance to what is essentially a quiet role. Make no mistake, though. His role is significant, and Jones delivers. Sheriff Bell emerges as the moral center in this insane world -- the counterpoint to the violence and immorality. A veteran law man on the verge of retirement, with too many years experience and eyes that have witnessed everything, he stumbled onto something he’s never seen before. Tired, and struggling to make sense of the carnage as the drama unfolds -- and what is driving the people behind it -- he seeks out an old colleague Ellis (Barry Corbin). He comes to realize that this is, indeed, no country for old men.

However, with his exceptionally chilling acting, Javier Bardem delivers the stand out performance in this film. He makes his voice simultaneously hypnotic and scary. From his character’s cold, unblinking stare, to his unusual stance, much of what Bardem needs to convey comes from his face, eyes, and the way he holds and moves his body. I tensed up during every one of his scenes. This character is a powder keg ready to blow. Any place you find Anton Chigurh is a place you don't want to be.

Both our hero and his nemesis are killers. For them, life is cheap. Hunting antelope, hunting people—is there really any difference? One is acceptable, the other isn't. Greed takes Llewellyn down a long, ugly, blood-soaked road toward oblivion. He imperils not only his life, but the life of his wife. Is it worth the price? Llewellyn would have done well to heed the biblical saying--the wages of sin is death.

No Country for Old Men is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Period.