Hidden loot, running far

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2013)

No Country for Old Men is a grandiose, dark, violent Neo-Western thriller from the Coen Brothers.
Adapted from a novel by Cormac McCarthy, it stars Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin. Brolin plays an ordinary Joe who whilst out hunting finds a fortune in the aftermath of a drug deal that went bad.
This leads to a cat and mouse game involving three men. Brolin who has to evade the relentless hit-man with a bad haircut played by Bardem.
He also has to steer clear of Lee Jones, the violence weary veteran sheriff on the hunt for both men knowing that Brolin has bitten off more than he can chew and is in danger.
The film is set in Texas of 1980 with a bleak, desert landscape. It is important to note the year, it means Brolin's character is a Vietnam war veteran and the film deals with the purported rise of modern urban violence from the 1970s onwards.
McCarty's novel and its adaptation deals with themes of fatalism, conscience and circumstance. The Coen Brothers have dealt with various types of crime genres before in their film careers ranging from Blood Simple, Crimewave, Fargo and Miller's Crossing.
In those films there have also been some form of humour even the the dark kind. Here they can pull the themes together in a grander scale as they have the source material that richly delivers. There is much less humour. A journey to bleakness lies for a lot of the participants.
It is a combination of a modern western and an urban thriller. Even its 1980s setting with its fashion and style can easily merge with the present day with the presence of four wheel drive vehicles, high rise buildings and automatic weapons.
The violence displayed is an important part of the film but some viewers may find this with the grim tone too much for them.