"Call It...Friendo..."

Rating: 9/10 (13 September 2008)

Our post 9/11 world is an increasingly dark and frightening place, and more and more, independent films are reflecting this. And none does a more effective job than NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Although conceptually it is hardly the best or most satisfying of the Coen Brothers films, possibly because it does seem to stay true to the spirit of Cormac McCarthy's bleak worldview, it has some of the best performances the team has ever gotten from actors they've worked with.
Just as the title baldly states, the world is becoming a much less accommodating or welcoming place for old time lawmen like Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones in the role that SHOULD'VE won him the Oscar.) There is no clear delineation between good and evil anymore, and evil has gotten more potent and a lot crazier. There is no honor among thieves or those sworn to bring them to justice, and the price of upholding principles could very well be everything...including your life.
Even the hardiest (if not the smartest) of young men can only hope to survive. In this case, the young man in question is one Llewelyn Moss (an excellent Josh Brolin.) Moss is out hunting one day when he comes across a scene of unspeakable carnage out in the middle of the desert: a drug deal gone spectacularly wrong. Following a trail of blood and heroin, Moss comes across the one would-be survivor of the massacre, and a case of money that's more than he could hope to put together in three lifetimes. Remember what I said about young men not being too smart? Well, Llewelyn's no rocket scientist, because even though he knows it can only bring him the worst kind of trouble, he takes the satchel anyway.
What Moss could've never guessed is exactly what kind of trouble, and how bad it would be. Trouble's name in this case would be Anton Chigurh (a nearly unrecognizable Javier Bardem, in the role that rightfully won him a Best Actor Oscar.) With that frightening Dorothy Hamiil- meets-Dustin-Hoffman-in-THE-GRADUATE pageboy haircut, and that voice that sounds like Mercedes McCambridge practicing lines for THE EXORCIST, he's your worst nightmare...a psychotic hired killer who revels in his psychosis, and regards killing the way we would regard grabbing a two-scoop cone at Ben and Jerry's.
One of the most disturbing scenes comes in at the very beginning, when Chigurh murders a deputy who thinks he's got it all under control when he brings this maniac in. The scene is exactly the kind that would have Hitchcock rubbing his hands together with glee. It's shot almost like a sex scene. Don't believe me? Watch closely...then run for the nearest shower afterward.
Chigurh's been hired to follow Moss's trail to the money, but the fact that he has his own twisted agenda and crazed sense of principles is what makes him dangerously unpredictable. And it's the trail of corpses he leaves in his wake, using an instrument of death that has to be the most bizarre so far in movie history, (and that's saying something these days), that leads him to cross paths with Sheriff Bell.
I don't want to say much more about it, except that another stroke of brilliance the Coens stole from Hitch, is how there is virtually no music whatsoever until the credits roll. You are so engrossed in the story and the characters that you don't really notice...until it kicks in at the very end. And juxtaposing the violence and moments of nearly unbearable tension is the breathtaking job that DP Roger Deakins did on the cinematography. It takes nothing away from the film to note how gorgeous the images are - one standout scene being a chase sequence involving Moss and some of the interested parties who are after him for the money, besides Chigurh.
Singing the praises of Jones, Bardem and Brolin, I don't want to shortchange any of the other cast members, since everyone gives phenomenal performances - most of them so good, they don't even seem like acting. Garret Dillahunt as Bell's stalwart deputy; Tess Harper as Bell's wife; Woody Harrelson as a tracker who really underestimates Chigurh's insanity; Kelly MacDonald and Beth Grant as Moss's wife and mother-in-law, respectively and Stephen Root in a role that is a shocking departure from his usual comedic work. They are all unfailingly good.
Where most moviegoers will find fault with COUNTRY is the lack of an ending that ties up all the loose ends, finding the bad guys dead, the good guys riding off into the sunset and everybody living happily ever after. Yet once again, considering the times in which we live, would you really have expected a tale so dark to end any other way but the way it does?
Not a bouncy, breezy evening at the movies, but unforgettable nevertheless, and I think it will equally please McCarthy and Coen Brothers fans without missing a beat.
Oh, and horror fans...Don't be too shocked to find that Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees have been replaced in your dreams by the face and voice of Anton Chigurh. He's so much WORSE.
Because Michael, Jason and Freddy are not people who could be parked across the street from your house right now. Anton could be...