excellent

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2008)

In Cormac McCarthy the Coen Brothers have evidently found a literary equivalent to their own world view, so close is No Country for Old Men to the stories they've been telling for so many years. Sheriff Bell's near-despair at the cruel carryings-on in the world he's attempting to police is an echo of Marge Gunderson's astonishment in Fargo, as she tries to make sense of the actions of the psychopath she's just arrested. In Fargo, Marge goes home to normal Norm, and some semblance of equilibrium is restored: not so in McCarthy's universe, which is a bleaker place.
Everything about this film is top-notch. There are one or two moments in the narrative which fuel the conversation for the audience's journey home (how come Chigurh got arrested at the top of the film, and for what? how did he know Moss was heading for Mexico?) but really, these things are not important in the long run. The photography and the acting are terrific; the script - with, so I understand, significant chunks lifted seamlessly from the novel - is as dazzling as we've come to expect from the Coens. If I don't rate it quite as high as Fargo, I guess it's because, while I probably share the broad, bleak outlook of No Country for Old Men, I guess I must like a little bit of hope smuggled into representations of our brutal world. But that's just me. This is an excellent film, no doubt about it.