Powerful but oh so depressing

Rating: 7/10 (4 September 2008)

If you're looking for a feel-good movie you most certainly have come to the wrong place. This is one seriously depressing film. So if you're not in the mood for that sort of thing perhaps you'll want to pass on this one. But if you do skip it you'll be missing a film which, depressing though it may be, is undeniably powerful. There may not be much inherent drama in the plot. The movie is essentially just a slow-speed chase. Will the bad guy catch the good guy? That's the movie in a nutshell. But somehow it all seems rather captivating. Perhaps that's because the bad guy is one of the most memorable, menacing and impossibly frightening movie villains we've ever seen.
Javier Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, the villain. Anton is pure evil personified. But somehow this completely inhuman character is utterly fascinating. Full credit to Bardem for creating a simply unforgettable character. Anton Chigurh may well haunt your nightmares for a while after seeing this film. He is a sociopathic assassin and in this film Llewelyn Moss has the misfortune of being Chigurh's prey. Moss, who is played by Josh Brolin, comes across a drug deal gone bad in the wide-open Texas plains and with everyone around lying dead he is able to make off with a satchel containing two million dollars. Moss is the good guy, so to speak, but he's certainly not the typical movie hero. But when hit-man Chigurh is sent after him to retrieve the money you can't help but root for Moss. And that's basically it. Moss on the run, Chigurh chasing him and a whole lot of bloody violence along the way.
Unfortunately there are many times during this movie where things slow down and not a whole lot of anything is going on. Chigurh chases Moss...and chases him...and chases him...and, well you get the point. Occasionally we cut to Tommy Lee Jones, playing the small-town sheriff Ed Tom Bell investigating the botched drug deal and its aftermath. Bell is old-school and world-weary and prone to homespun philosophizing about the new brand of violence he must confront. Jones is very good in the role but in all the scenes in which his character is the focus it is as if the movie is just biding time until the next violent outburst. And there are certainly plenty of violent outbursts. Other characters wander in and out but the movie is really all about Moss and Chigurh. And while Brolin is fine in his role it is Bardem you will long remember in his depiction of unrelenting evil. A great character but one great character does not make a great movie. There are some great pieces here. The movie is beautifully shot, there are many moments of almost unbearable tension and drama and Bardem's performance is breathtaking. But there are too many moments where the story drags, the plot is rather bare-bones and the whole thing kind of peters out at the end. For a film which had so many incredibly tense moments throughout the ending is rather mundane, very much abrupt and somewhat disappointing. All in all No Country for Old Men may be depressing but it's still a good film. It's just not a great one.