What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?

Rating: 8/10 (6 December 2015)

Known primarily for their black comedies and farcical crime films, the Coen brothers decided to tackle a new genre: western. After making a couple of films which haven't been received as well as their previous work, the Coens are back. Brothers known for writing and directing their films are adapting Cormac McCarthy's book 'No Country For Old Men'. This is their first proper adaptation of a novel (1990's Miller's Crossing uses some characters, dialogue and plot points of Dashiell Hammet's prohibition-era novels). The plot of this film kicks into gear when Llewellyn Moss (played superbly by Josh Brolin), a simple welder from Texas, finds a case with $2m in it after a drug deal went horribly wrong. His and his family's lives are in danger, inevitably, other people start looking for the money as well. The man playing cat-and-mouse with him is Anton Chigurh, exquisitely portrayed by Javier Bardem. He is introduced in film's first scene; while it doesn't influence the plot a great deal, it establishes his character's insanity excellently. The grotesque grimace he makes when strangling a man would be guaranteed to stay with the viewers for a long time, if the events which follow weren't even more unflinchingly brutal. When on his own with people he doesn't have to kill, Chigurh uses a coin toss to decide their fate. This might sound childish, but it creates some incredibly well-crafted points of tension, boosted by Bardem's emotionless delivery of the dialogue. This film has certain dark comic elements, like when Llewellyn sleeps on a public bench and is woken up by a mariachi band, whose expressions turn from joyous to comically horrified when they see that Llewellyn's clothes are soaked with blood. Also, the film portrays America (and humanity in general) in a very grim way – most characters turn out to be cynical, greedy and ruthless. This isn't the first Coen film to make such statement on society, but this one has elements rarely seen in their films. For example, music and dialogue are very sparse – Carter Burwell's score is only 16 minutes long (out of a 122 minute runtime). This is a superb film; a very faithful adaptation of an acclaimed novel. However, it is not flawless. The biggest problem is Tommy Lee Jones' character; he simply isn't interesting enough or influential in terms of plot to merit the amount of screen time he gets, which bogs the film down slightly.