A Force to be Reckoned With

Rating: 10/10 (29 November 2007)

No Country for Old Men is a strange and wonderful kind of film. The movie creeps along at an unsettlingly slow pace and yet you will be glued to the screen every moment. No Country for Old Men may be the Coen Brothers masterpiece. Does it rival Fargo? I say it surpasses it; which might not be fair because they are totally different film, Fargo being much lighter, NCFOM being much grittier.
Without going into the finer details, the movie begins with Llewelyn Moss, masterfully played by Josh Bolin stumbling upon what seems to be a drug deal gone bad. After finding two million dollars in a satchel, he finds himself on the run for his life from various drug runners and Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Tommy Lee Jones plays Ed Tom Bell, the local sheriff who catches on to what trouble Moss is in and attempts to help. This is the setup for one of the most riveting, layer, and bleakly wonderful movies ever made.
And so much of it rests on the shoulders of Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh. NCFOM is definitely a character driven piece, all of them inspiringly complex and human. But none are as profound as Anton Chigurh. Javier Bardem has succeeded in created what I believe to be the most frightening character ever played on film. I have seen more horror movies that I can count, yet I have never felt as tense as I did whenever he came on screen. His role is positively brilliant, a true personification of pure evil. This is a man who can make a quarter the most frightening thing you've ever seen. Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones also give masterful and both darkly funny roles. Seeing these characters entangled in a deadly chase for money that begins to lose it's value as all the characters begin to see how damned they truly are.
In the end, No Country for Old Men is a staggeringly power, beautiful, and haunting film that is unrelentingly brilliant. One aspect of the film that many will hate is that it leaves so much up to interpretation, when you leave the theatre you won't want to talk about anything but this film. The true beauty of No Country For Old Men is that it's made up of seemingly unimportant moments that end up holding so much weight, not unlike all our lives. The film also contains a scene with Chigurh at a gas station which is one of the greatest scenes I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. The movie is gritty, bloody, and can't be ignored. No Country for Old Men is a forced to be reckoned with. Destined to go down as an American Classic.