Yet another brilliant Movie from Coen Brothers

Rating: 10/10 (3 August 2008)

'No Country for Old Men' is a grim and unsettling film that curiously makes its viewer beg for more of the same. In adapting Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, sibling writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen, the team behind 'Fargo' and 'O Brother Where Art Thou?,' keep their quirky humor in check and stare unflinchingly at the worst humanity has to offer. As a result, the duo may have created their most accomplished and compelling movie to date.
The Coens have always penned lively dialogue ("We felt the institution no longer had anything to offer us," says John Goodman, justifying his prison break in "Raising Arizona") and demonstrated visual panache (the wood chipper scene in "Fargo" is hard to forget).
But the characters in "No Country for Old Men," despite being larger than life, seem more real and believable. It's much easier to get worked up over their outcomes than wondering how the broad characters in "Intolerable Cruelty" might fare.It also doesn't hurt that the new film is loaded with several first-rate performers who can make potentially outlandish situations seem real. Tommy Lee Jones stars as Ed Tom Bell, a grizzled, third-generation lawman who has stumbled upon a grizzly case that makes anything he's handled before seem tame.
An antelope hunter named Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) discovers the aftermath of a drug deal that turned into a massacre. The only survivor of the class is a mortally-wounded man who's only able to beg for water, which Llewellyn doesn't have.In what seems like a major stroke of luck, he discovers a case of money that no one at the site of the debacle has lived to collect. He takes it home to his trailer park, bewildering his wife (Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald).
The seemingly untraceable fortune actually has several people eager to claim it. A flashy hired gun named Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) has the dual task of retrieving the money and finding another fellow who's after it.Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, obliterating his Spanish accent) may have been hired initially to find the cash, but he quickly leaves a trail of blood as long as the Nile. With his drooping bangs, Chigurh looks almost comical from a distance. His cold, brown eyes, however, betray how dangerous he can be. He murders anyone who gets in his way. And he often seems to dispatch people simply for pleasure.
He's also as inventive as he is arbitrarily cruel. He can turn air tanks into a both a weapon and a door opener. Think of his as a Satanic McGuyver. Barden also projects the right blend of menace and buffoonery that makes each of Chigurh's attacks seem appropriately shocking.As Chigurh's quarry, Brolin is appropriately compelling. He may have been dumb to get himself in his current predicament, but he's resourceful enough to survive longer than anyone else who crosses Chigurh's path. Brolin has a likable sad sack quality to makes you wish he could get out of his grim situation.
Following all of the sordid events is Jones' Earl Tom. The sheriff can read a crime scene with astonish accuracy, but correctly worries that it will take a Herculean effort to prevent a greater bloodbath. Jones demonstrates a fascinating vulnerability that belies his tough guy image and manages to make a character who functions primarily as a narrator engaging on his own terms.
In addition to three terrific lead performances, the Coens manage to deliver some of their usual wordplay. When asked how dangerous Chigurh is, Wells simply replies, "Compared to what? The bubonic plague?" And thanks to McCarthy's plot line, they also have some genuinely surprising plot twists. The film constantly throws off a viewer's expectations.
"No Country for Old Men" is sometimes a difficult film to watch because it's unflinchingly grim and often leaves viewers to reach their own decisions about what happened.But the film lingers in the brain long after the credits start rolling and proves the Coen's can examine the frailty of the human heart as skillfully as they can manipulate words and images.