The directing, acting and cinematography is outstanding, but that really is a gross understatement.

Rating: 10/10 (10 February 2013)

'No Country For Old Men' film review.
Having spent a lot of my summer watching films from the top 250 list on IMDb, I finally made my way down to No Country For Old Men. A film I'd heard ravenously positive reviews for, when it was released in 2007 and one I had never got round to watching. And the first film that I concluded was well worth my time producing a review for. I chose to dive into this film without viewing the trailer, so I was totally oblivious as to what I would be exposed to. All I knew was the brief plot line; that there was 'a drug deal gone wrong.'
No Country For Old Men directed by the Coen brothers and based on the critically acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy, began with stunning scenes of the Rio Grande overlaid with a strong opening voice-over by Tommy Lee Jones, who effortlessly plays an intelligent and compassionate police Sheriff. A Sheriff who subtly adds a voice of sanity and slight humour in a world where evil and corruption is at its peak. He stumbles upon a drug deal that had certainly 'gone wrong.' His callow young deputy remarks, plaintively: "It's a mess, ain't it, Sheriff?" And he replies, concisely: "If it ain't, it'll do until the mess gets here." Suggesting the overpowering, current criminal situation of western America.
The second introduction is where we meet Javier Bardem, who plays Anton Chigur. Probably being the most ruthless and inhumane villain I have ever had the pleasure of watching. At first viewing, his appalling hairstyle and serious wit is completely overshadowed by his thirst for murder, using an air gun that is familiar in the cattle industry for killing livestock, where he mindlessly kills his victims just as if they too were cattle ready for slaughter. With multiple viewings, I was then able to fully appreciate his performance and embrace the moments when they were so cruel it was funny. Anton Chigur was a hit man who was given the job of retrieving the lost $2 million dollars from the botched drug deal. The very first scene in which we meet Anton and really see what he is capable of is where he mimics a police officer and orders an innocent man out of his car, which unsurprisingly sees the man to his death. A very striking scene that immediately indicated to me I was in for a roller-coaster of a ride.
The next and final main character is Josh Brolin, who plays a cowboy-type called Llewellyn Moss. He carries the majority of the film with his powerhouse performance of a calculated and intelligent man in hot pursuit with the cash, right up until his inevitable death nearer the end. The grueling journey we see, with the utterly psychopathic Anton right on Llewellyn's heels is as tense as anything I'd seen before and the absolute definition of 'thrill ride.' To be genuinely terrified throughout a film has never happened to me before, but in many scenes I really was holding my breath because I had no idea what was going to happen next. The absence of music added to the ever growing suspense and the severe reality of this film.
The tone of the film is evidently apocalyptic; I felt, at times, that the characters were in ghost towns and that they were completely on their own in this severely dangerous world. The battle between good and evil is intensified by the Sheriffs need for redemption. The seriousness mixed in with comical elements is recognisably Coen's work. But here they manage to heighten and deepen their identity as filmmakers with a film that I would only describe as perfect. The directing, acting and cinematography is outstanding, but that really is a gross understatement.