You can't stop what's coming.

Rating: 10/10 (28 January 2008)

West Texas is a perfect setting for a movie like this -- no trees, just desolate land for miles around. The chicken farmer (Richard Jackson) was from Alpine -a place in the middle of nowhere with a long long stretch of road that literally - I kid you not - has turkey buzzards on the fence posts along the way. Annie Proulx (Brokeback Mountain) described it perfectly in her 2002 book, "That Old Ace in the Hole." I've been gone from there for five years, but it hadn't changed much from the 1980 setting in the film, an I suspect it hasn't changed much more.
Llewelyn Moss, played brilliantly by Josh Brolin (Grindhouse, Hollow Man) thought he hit the jackpot. But, he didn't account for Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Chigurh was methodical, intelligent and psychotic. He is the human equivalent of the terminator robot after John Conner. Those who believe in souls would not say that Chigurg has one.
Tommy Lee Jones (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, U.S. Marshals) is a tired sheriff that comes from a long line of lawmen. He knows that he is no match for Chigurg. It's not Richard Kimble or Mark Sheridan he's chasing, but a man who has no match.
The dialog is dry and things are not always explained. There is constant tension knowing what may lie on the other side of the door.
Jones' buddy Ellis had it down: Whatcha got ain't nothing new. "This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity." Dying with your boots on is still dying.