A masterpiece if I've ever seen one; the Coens are back in form, their best film yet

Rating: 10/10 (4 January 2008)

The film represents a downright uncanny application of cinematic craft on the Coen's part. They deliver storytelling in its most flawless, raw, visceral form, and indeed the film has quite the incredible story to tell, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy (which I have intentionally put off reading in order to enjoy the film to the fullest, although I fully intend to seek it out now  by the way, if anybody hasn't read McCarthy's Pulitzer-Prize winning novel "The Road", do so now). But the Coens have long before transcended telling a mere plot. The film provides its best storytelling when there is no dialogue. Notice with what utter grace and absolute perfection the Coens create tension and drama. From the first moment he appears on screen, we are scared petrified of the Anton Chigurh character, and the Coens have calculated the introduction of his appearance and mannerisms so that every time he merely walks onto the screen, we get chills down our spine. Behold probably the most amazingly directed sequence of any film this year, which involves Llewelyn Moss sitting in his motel room and hearing what are clearly Chigurh's footsteps coming down the hall, until his shadow appears under the crack of the door. But if only that were all  Chigurh continues to turn off the light, drenching the scene in pitch-darkness. No other scene in any other film this year has more effortlessly created tension and true, primal fear within me as a viewer. And the scene continues, as Llewelyn apprehends a vehicle, immediately after which the windshield begins to shatter from Chigurh's shots that are being fired from who knows where, which further elevates the pressure. One of the scariest scenes in any film this year cannot be found in The Mist, or in 1408, or in any of the shock-horror pictures put out, but rather can be found right near the beginning of No Country, as the Chigurh character enters a small gas station shop and manages, without doing much at all besides playing an almost-too-calm word game with the teller, to obstinately petrify and terrorize us. I don't think a screen character has ever been depicted as more nervous than that of the store clerk in the scene in question. It is precisely these characters, such as that of the store clerk or the overweight landlady at the trailer park, that make this film so unmistakably Coen. Their mannerisms and way of talking, while not meant to be comic, are presented in an almost comic fashion. It is that unique Coen sense of humour, in which they turn the nerve-racking edginess and anxiety in the gas station scene with Chigurh into a comic moment. The Coens have an uncanny ability to create comedy simply out of the absurdity of the situation. Not a word is wasted, and every strand of dialogue, every line and passage, is absolutely and entirely pitch-perfect; it is an incredible, extraordinary screenplay.
The Coens had previously reached a creative peak with Fargo, but No Country for Old Men serves as a new high for the directorial duo, and if Michelangelo can have both the Sistine Chapel and his statue of David, then surely the Coens are entitled to their two masterpieces; the classic Fargo and the modern No Country. The pieces can be further viewed as companions due to their striking similarities in terms of themes, setting and visuals; both featuring stark, horizon-reaching landscapes, regular-guy characters who get mixed up with the very wrong people, and police officers as the moral cores of the film and ultimately the central subject matter. But if Fargo delivered a more uplifting moral closure with the story of Marge Gunderson, No Country for Old Men is far more pessimistic, delivering a scathing life lesson in the depressing closure to Ed Tom Bell's tale. As in all of their films, No Country also features that very specifically Coen brothers sense of humour, which can turn even a dark and menacing dramatic thriller into a comedy by playing off the ridiculousness of the characters and the situations they get themselves into. The film also serves as a stunning, remarkable application of cinematic craft, featuring absolutely stupefying direction, cinematography, editing, production value and everything in between. Working from an utterly brilliant screenplay from the Coens, the actors deliver unnerving, compelling, show-stealing performances, in particular Tommy Lee Jones as the scarred old timer for whom this violent country is certainly no place; Josh Brolin in a brilliant lead-role debut as the naive average Joe who gets mixed in way over his head with unstoppable forces of nature; and Javier Bardem, as the ruthless, terrifying, primeval villain and embodiment of pure evil. It is a striking, epic, complex, many-leveled work of seething bleakness and stunning desolation, delivering an all-around depressing moral and human outcome. It is a movie that lives and breathes through its fascinating characters, its visceral settings, its striking visuals. It is the best film of the year, and an astounding, incredible cinematic achievement on all possible planes. The Coens have truly outdone themselves and have finally sealed their spot as one of if not the most important modern-day cinematic auteurs. May we see only work like this from them in the future  a masterpiece if I've ever seen one.