No. I ain't gonna call it

Rating: 8/10 (11 April 2009)

The key to getting at the meaning of this story is understanding that the film is essentially a classic western set in 1980. And what a western it is, one of the finest, as well as one of the finest films of any genre put up on the screen. A classic, a future AFI's 100 greatest.
While hunting somewhere in Southwest Texas near the border, Llewlyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad and over two million dollars in cash. Everyone's dead or as good as. A dying man asks Moss for water, but Moss doesn't have any water. He discerns that there's a load of cash somewhere and inquires about the last man standing. He finds him a few hundred yards away, shot up and dead. He takes the satchel of cash and determines to keep it to make a better life for his wife Carla Jean and himself. As the story progresses we see that the two love each other a great deal. Moss--a Vietnam veteran, a rough and ready man--is gentle with Carla Jean, a sweet, loving, obedient sort who trusts Moss and admires his courage and his sense of right. Hence, the hero and the virtuous heroine.
We later learn that a businessman in Houston or Dallas (it doesn't matter) is behind the buy, the owner of the money. He hires Chigurh--a cold, pitiless psychopathic killer--to track the money down, but he doesn't know Chigurh, has no idea what he's hired. Chigurh turns on the businessman's agents, coolly shoots them both dead after getting his hands on the receiver linked to a transponder hidden among the bills in the satchel that Moss is still unwittingly carrying along with the cash. Chigurh aims to find and keep the money for himself. Hence, the classic western villain, but also an archetype of evil. But not just any evil. Bardem's character personifies the human Evil that so often seems to prevail in the world.
We have Woody Harrelson's character Carson Wells, a sympathetic bounty hunter and apparently a spook during the war, also hired by the businessman to deal with Chigurh, find Moss and retrieve the money. (The Coens imply that Chigurh was some kind of operative himself during the war; perhaps that's how Wells, who compares Chigurh to the bubonic plague, knows of him.) Wells has no intention of harming Moss, just do the job he was hired to do and kill Chigurh, which Wells already knows is necessary. Wells is not a cruel man. In addition to Wells and unknown to him, the businessman has hired two independent teams of Mexican gunmen, a matter of increasing the odds.
Sheriff Bell, Tommy Lee Jones' character, surmises that Moss, a man he knows and likes, has got the drug money and is on the run from Chigurh, whom he wants to stop, but increasingly feels that he's simply outmatched by Chigurh's sheer relentlessness as he contemplates the maniac's trail of mayhem. Jones' character is the personification of Despair.
And finally, surprisingly, Kelly Macdonald's character Carla Jean is the personification of resolute Courage in the face of Evil.
This is a dark film, mostly conveying a sense of hopelessness. The locations and set designs are intended to be as stark and as barren, as the film's thematic terrain. The Coens did not make a stylized shoot 'em up. I suspect from their work in this film and from that of previous films that the brothers frown on that sort of sensationalism. I'm with them on that one.
The Coens typically go for a slightly warped realism, filled with quirky characters and ironic dialogue. This is a western; these are men of few words. But when they do speak in this film, the dialogue and the delivering are brilliant. Nevertheless, being a Coen film, the dialogue is much more extensive than your typical western. As "cowboys" go, these could be rather talkative and eloquent while still conveying the tight-lipped, square-chin aurora. That's some magic the Coens wielded there.
Sheriff Bell's despair is heartbreakingly conveyed by Jones. This tough, brave character, one which absolutely believes in protecting and serving, a sincere throwback, has a tender heart. And as it turns out, too tender in its dotage to stand up anymore. Hence, the title, "No Country for Old Men".
Moving onto the last movement of the film. . . .
But Moss is not too old. Tough and ready, he lets Chigurh know that he's not about to fold.
"I'm going to make you my special project."
Hence, Moss comes to realize, now fully cognizant of the danger Bardem's character poses, that he cannot simply evade this madmen, he must turn the tables and hunt him down. And, apparently, since he's the only man who has ever faced Chigurh, once already, even wounding him, and is still alive to talk about it, we believe he can and will defeat him.
Finally, Bardem's perfectly controlled performance is pure, understated menace, palpable, riveting--the merciless evil of a character utterly unaware of his own banality. His is one of the finest screen performances ever.