Typical Coen film in that nothing is typical. Compelling character study.

Rating: Null/10 (12 April 2008)

I figure that I really like about two-thirds of the Coen Brothers movies. 'Fargo' and 'The Man Who Wasn't There' are a couple of my favorites. They seem to do best in movies where good and evil, serious and funny, are juxtaposed. This one is very interesting, but has a sort of open-ended finish that may upset some viewers.
The movie starts with a narration by Tommy Lee Jones who plays small county sheriff Ed Tom Bell, not too far away from retirement. As in 'The Valley of Elah', he is superb here. His part of this story begins when they find a bunch of bodies out in the scrub land, apparently a drug deal gone bad.
Josh Brolin is Llewelyn Moss, a laborer type of man who happens upon the dead bodies while he is out hunting for Antelope with a high-powered rifle. He finds the bodies, and the drugs, and wonders where the money is. When he finds it, in the large briefcase, it is two $$Million in $100 bill packages. He isn't wealthy and decides his best course of action is to keep it. However, since the bad guys end up with his personal information when in a change of heart he goes back to give water to a dying man, and he almost gets killed himself, he decides that he and his wife need to leave their trailer and run.
Javier Bardem is the very menacing man with no moral compass, Anton Chigurh. He is out to get the money back and doesn't have any qualms about killing anyone he encounters, even if they do nothing to him. He chases Llewelyn across Texas and into Mexico and back.
Woody Harrelson is excellent in a small role as Carson Wells who also chases Chigurh. Kelly Macdonald, who was so good as a teenager in 'Trainspotting', is Llewelyn's simple wife, Carla Jean Moss.
One of my all-time favorites, Barry Corbin of 'Northern Exposure' fame, plays Sheriff Bell's older brother Ellis. It was 10 years ago that I was an extra in a movie, and had the chance to sit with Corbin and have a pleasant conversation as we waited for the sound guy to get ready.
MAJOR SPOILERS: Llewelyn's end comes at a cheap motel, and Chigurh ends up recovering a good portion of the money. As he is driving, he is distracted and gets into a severe crash at an intersection, but he manages to limp away. Sheriff Bell retires and muses over there not being a place for old men in our country.