No Country for Old Men

This guy will ruin your shit

This is my first movie review here so it'll be a bit rocky but i'll do my best. I saw No Country for Old Men last night and was blown away. I've enjoyed several Coen Brothers movies before like Fargo and The Big Lebowski, both of which I rate extremely high on my list so I was optimistic about this without really knowing anything about the movie.

You can really take this movie 2 ways, you can shut your mind off and enjoy it as an awesome action/thriller cat and mouse slugfest, or you can look deeper and discover that it goes a lot further than that. It's the type of movie where I saw it with 3 other people and whilst we all really enjoyed it, we all came away with different ideas on exactly what took place and what it meant. Of course only seeing it the one time there are probably still things I have missed, it will certainly get a second and third viewing.

The movie is about a retired Vietnam war vet called Llewelyn Moss (played by Nick Cave or something like that) who is out on a regular deer hunting trip in rural texas. Whils tracking a wounded deer he comes across the remains of a drug deal gone wrong. Dead bodies everywhere and bullet riddled cars. He finds a truck load of heroin. He finds one wounded survivor and realises there has to be a last man standing so he asks him where the last man went. The dying man only wants water, so Llewelyn up and leaves him and goes off in search of the shoot out winner. He finds another body under a tree several hundred metres away, under his arm is a suitcase with 2 million in cash.

Llewelyn does what any one of us would do and takes the cash without thinking. This is what starts our wild ride. For what ever reason, when you become a multi millionaire in the space of a day you grow a conscience and head back to the dying man in the middle of the night with the water that he asked for. This is Llewelyn's biggest mistake as he soon realises he wasn't the only one that knew the cash was there.

What follows is an amazing game of cat and mouse. A bounty hunter is sent after Llewelyn. A screen villain so chilling and ruthless that he rivals greats like Hannibal Lecter and John Doe. The man is Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem). He may have one of the most ridiculous haircuts in modern cinema but somehow it adds to his character. A cold blooded sociopath who has a knack for unnerving conversation. His weapons of choice are a shotgun with massive silencer and an air cannister which he uses to blow open doors and heads. Like Hannibal Lecter he is very concerned with people's manners ... bad manners will lead to your death. He politely asks a man to step out of the car before popping him in the head and like the Batman villian 'Two Face', he will sometimes flip a coin, giving you the choice of life or death.
It's clear from the start that Anton is a professional whilst Llewelyn is just a regular guy with street smarts.

The movie is full of tense moments and you're quickly sucked into the characters ... you either become a Llewelyn supporter or an Anton man. More curve balls are thrown in as the mexicans who's drug deal it was originally decide they want their money back and a rich business man sends Woody Harrelson after Anton Chigurh. Llewlyn's goal at first is to get the money and his wife out of Texas but soon simpley becomes to survive.

Another major player is Tommy Lee Jones, who has the "holy fuck there's Tommy Lee Jones!" moment in the film. His role is the retiring police sherriff who is on the case of the shoot out. He knows Llewlyn has the money and he wants to protect him but has no idea who is after him. Tommy Lee Jone's role in the movie is played very well. He's retiring for a good reason, he's always one step behind everyone, he unwittingly makes connections that could solve the case but never quite picks up on it, yet he doesn't come off as a dumbass ... you're actually left sitting there wishing he would retire for his own sake. You either want Tommy Lee Jones (his character name doesn't get a mention simpley because he's Tommy Lee Jones) to save Llewelyn or for him to bump into Anton and become another notch in his killin' belt, but he can't quite seem to do either.

The lighting, sound and overall atmosphere of this movie is incredible. A scene that really stands out is Llewelyn sitting on his hotel room bed in the dark with shot gun pointed at his bedroom door. While outside in the hall footsteps draw closer as well as the increasing sound of a tracking device which is homing in on the signal from the transmitter sitting on the bedside table in the room. Shadows of someone's feet apear under the bedroom door as Llewelyn shifts uncomfortably. The tracking device switches off and you're holding your breath waiting for what will happen. The shadow moves away from the door and the sound of a light bulb being unscrewed can be heard and suddenly there is no light under the door anymore. Footsteps indicate the person is walking back to the door though. You know what will happen next, yet that will not stop you from being shocked.

The script is solid too, no expense on attention to detail was spared in this film. One conversation that takes place is particularly crucial. Feeling too old and impotent to take on Anton, Tommy Lee Jones visits his rueful Uncle Ellis, a retired cop played by Barry Corbin, who tells him a haunting story about a lawman at the turn of the century and how he met his doom. Anton is not something new to Uncle Ellis, but just the latest version of an ancient evil buried in the national psyche; he’s not an aberration but a recurring disease for which there is no cure. Tommy Lee Jones finds no solace here. This conversation and a later one with his wife elevates the genre material into tragedy.

The one criticism someone might level at the film is its overriding nihilism, its sense of hopelessness in the face of cosmic evil. It offers little in the way of personal redemption or rectifying justice. But it serves as a corrective to the narratives of good and evil, civilization and barbarism, individualism and adversity latent in the western genre. It offers neither closure nor joy of revenge to its protagonists. And that’s okay, because sometimes resourcefulness and effort really aren’t enough.
Depending on how you look at this you'll come away with a different story, depending on who of the three characters you choose to make the story about.

Llewelyn's story is of your regular joe who you take a liking to. He's in way over his head and the odds are stacked against him in a big way, you're wanting him to pull through and make it out alive with the money because he might be the person you want to be most in the movie.
Anton's story is less that he is a person, but more a force of nature. If he's your main character you'll look closely into how he works as a killer and a person, how he makes up his own rules, conversation with Anton is absurd in its dry detachment. The people he encounters are struck with bemusement when this strange creature, with his own rules about life and death, ambles into their lives. Negotiating with him is like negotiating with the weather. He is like a real life killer where you might call him a sick mother fucker, but part of you is fascinated with him and what makes him. He isn't really given a backstory yet you still get to know him somewhat, its almost as if you're given a certain amount of information on how he works, but who he is and his backstory is up to you.
Focusing on Tommy Lee Jones as the main character shows you the story of a man who's career is winding down, he's old and not as great as he once was, and he knows it. Yet he will still stand for what is good and right, even if it costs him his life. You could argue that Anton is fighting for his principals, Llewelyn certainly isn't - he wants the money, but Tommy Lee Jones' character's fight is certainly for what he believes in, and in some of his finest acting to date he puts forward a strong case for you to follow him as the lead.

If you have a chance I can't recommend this movie enough. The ending will shock you and make you realise that this isn't your typical hollywood blockbuster. I wouldn't quite call it a twist, but it's certainly something you don't see coming, and that will keep you on the edge of your seat.