Film Review: No Country for Old Men

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen

A film noir from 2007 by the infamous Coen brothers who continue to impress with original films, this time they adapt the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. Among its four Oscars at the 2007 Academy Awards were awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film probably has the most in-common with Fargo out of the Coen brothers earlier works with the story surrounding murders and an older experienced police detective trying to solve the crime.

Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem)

Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is out hunting and finds the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong in the desert in Texas. He steals two million dollars from a duffel bag and heads home after being chased away by two men in a pickup truck, he escapes into the next county after sending his wife to her mothers to be safe. The problem he has is that Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is the ruthless hitman that has been hired to recover the money and will stop at nothing to find it. Amongst all this experienced Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is tasked with solving the mystery around the drug deal and the string of deaths following the stolen money.

Javier Bardem is excellent as the cold killer Anton who uses a captive bolt pistol to execute his victims and break through locked doors. He portrays almost no emotion and has only one goal, to recover the stolen money. The tension Bardem brings to every scene is incredible, you almost know what he's going to do at each turn but you will him not to do it.Whilst Tommy Lee Jones as the weary police sheriff is clever, wily but tired of the violence that continues to blight his county which leads to a clever but slightly beguiling ending to the film. Its also interesting to note that the three main characters (Moss, Chigurh and Bell) almost never share the screen at the same time.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones)

The film is incredibly faithful to the 2005 book and works hard to depict the gritty violence of the novel, whilst the almost predestined turn of events are nothing new in the Coen brothers work. The Coens are markedly less interested in who (if anyone) gets away with the loot than in the primal forces that urge the characters forward. This isn't just a simple crime drama about who escapes with $2 million but something much deeper.

3.5/4 One of the Coen brothers finest film to date