a review by M.G. Wood

© 2007 Miramax Films

November 9th, 2007(Limited) Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald Miramax Films

“Is Carson Wells there?”

“He’s not here in the sense that you mean.”

Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is in search of stolen drug money. The drug money was stolen by Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin). Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is in search of Chigurh, for the trail of dead bodies Chigurh has left in his wake.

The Sheriff’s deputy discovers one of Chigurh’s victims has an entry and an exit wound through the forehead, but no bullet could be found.

“You want to go diggin’ around inside his head?”

“No.”

The reason there is no bullet, is because Chigurh is using what appears to be an air-driven device that delivers enough force to blow a perfectly cylindrical hole in one side and out the other, it’s also handy for blowing dead-bolt locks off doors.

In one scene that delivers both a chilling clue and an insight into the exhausted pessimism of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: the Sheriff tells Llewelyn Moss’s wife a story about a man he knows that slaughters cattle, and the instrument he uses to stun the animal sounds a lot like the device Chigurh is using. Is the Sheriff telling the story because he has already figured out the killer’s method and is trying to prepare the wife for the worst or has he become so disconnected that he isn’t even aware of his own discovery?

Has there ever been a more perfect bit of casting in film than that of Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell? Tommy Lee Jones is famous for editing his dialogue down to the bare minimum, and the Coen Brothers have handed Mr. Jones a character custom made. And the combination of Cormac McCarthy’s great storytelling and the Coen Bros. lyrical dialogue makes almost everything that comes out of Mr. Jones’ mouth sound like poetry.

Consider the speech by Jones as he talks about how when he was young he always believed as he got older God would come into his life and make everything alright, but God never showed up.

“Oh, he’s no ghost, he’s real.”

Josh Brolin plays Llewlyn Moss, a cowboy dead certain that he will get away from the monster chasing him, and will deliver the money to his waiting wife. So certain is Moss, that when his last chance to escape comes, he decides to turn the tables and go after Chigurh, and get ‘em dead or alive.

“There’s no way of knowin’ what’s comin’.”

The Coen Brothers deliver a film that at times seems to be setting up a finale where in Bruce Willis can come in, guns a blazin’, making all right with the world again. And if that’s what audiences expect going into NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, they clearly have never seen a Coen Bros. film.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN has come out at just the right time, following the excellent drama MICHAEL CLAYTON and the controversial finale of THE SOPRANOS; the Coen Bros. deliver a violent, cynical slap in the mouth to the fairy tales Americans have had to suffer through over the last 20+ years.

Fantasy has become the norm, and the unexpected unacceptable, film makers have been pandering to a culture raised on religious mythology and political stage craft, and after years of an “independent” film movement that has gradually devolved into it’s own pattern of appeasement, it’s heartening to see film makers like the Coens and big wigs like George Clooney delivering the goods.

Some of the Coen Brothers' work can appear at first somewhat thin, yet grow deeper and funnier with repeated viewings, see THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1997). Better yet, when it's strikingly clear that you are watching a masterwork, like FARGO (1996), you can revel in the fact that you are watching a great film that may very well reveal further layers upon repeated viewings, and this is the sense one gets when watching NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, you want to immediately watch it again. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN is an uncompromising masterpiece, and the best film by the Coen brothers since FARGO.

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