Shades of "Fargo",set in the vast,dry plains of South Texas

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2007)

The Coen Brothers' 1996 not-so-cult movie I just mentioned may not be a direct comparison(though,as I recall from just seeing it,it isn't TOO far from being one,to be honest)to this current offering from them.
PArt-time big game hunter Llwelyn Moss(JOsh Brolin,bruising and bleeding away his cleaner,sexier image here)runs across a prairie filed where a drug deal has gone violently wrong and left what appears to be no survivors. Among the carnage there,he spots a briefcase loaded with $2 Million. Letting greed get the best of his better instincts,Llwelyn takes the case and makes with it,much to the chagrin of the angry drug lords who once possessed it and of particular interest to one Anton Shigurh(Javier Bardem,a vision of steady concentration and nightmarish violence and efficiency),a hired killer who seems to have gone completely rogue. On the trail of both are two completely different agendas: hired "fixer" Carson Wells(Woody Harrelson,in his most succinct performance in recent history)and local Sheriff Ed Tom Bell(Tommy Lee Jones,who should ready himself for another onslaught of major award noms,if not outright awards for this performance),an aging,world weary lawman with more sense than to chase this case,but too much guts to let it go. As Shigurh carves a violent swath of destruction through south Texas into Mexico,it becomes increasingly evident that the clean escape that Moss had planned with the money is becoming almost impossible and a much higher debt to pay than what's contained in the purloined case he's been keeping.
With heart-breaking performances by Kelly MacDonald(as the confused and powerless wife of Llewelyn),Tess HArper and Beth Grant(As,respectively,the warm and caring but ultimately unable to help wife of the Sheriff and Llwelyn's opinionated and feisty mother-in-law)and a dialog and soundtrack that is spare yet hauntingly effective,this movie makes the very choice move of making sure that little or no backing sound highlights or underscores the violence(and there's plenty of it)that this movie provides. Off the top of my head,the main comparison that this movie has to Fargo is that in both,a less-than-physically agile but very sharp and incorruptible law enforcement officer(here,Jones,in FArgo,Frances McDormand)tracks vile,potentially vicious thugs(here,of course,Bardem;there,Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare)through a state that is full of rural,potentially unforgiving terrain(FArgo's Minnesota and North DAkota to Old Men's Texas). Adapted off Cormac McCArthy's best-seller,the Coen's have seemed to rediscover their ability to contract their more scattered,frenetic,tongue-in-cheek natural style(think Raising Arizona,The Hudsucker Proxy,The Big Lebowski and,to a lesser degree,Barton Fink)and brought it down to something almost poetic and hypnotic(think MIller's Crossing,a film I personally found lushly made but irritating and hard to engage in). This movie disturbs as well as it entertains,but I have a strong feeling that was the aim of the makers,and as such,they hit their target(no pun intended).