NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN Review

Despite not being the biggest Coen brothers fan, there's something about No Country For Old Men that just clicks for me. Whether it'd be the terrific ensemble, the detailed writing, or the quiet but subdued pacing, it's a film that's always been on my mind for quite some time.

The film follows Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who stumbles upon a botched up drug deal and takes a briefcase that holds $2 million in cash. He discovers he's being followed by a merciless killer by the name of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) and decides to make a run for it with the money. Meanwhile, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) investigates the grizzly aftermath of the crime scene. Realizing the amount of trouble Llewelyn has gotten himself into, Ed does everything he can to find and protect the desperate man from what's coming.

Out of the Coen brothers' films I've witnessed, this might be their masterpiece. It's not only an extremely well-crafted film, but it's a well-realized one that's has great tension building without cheating its audience. In a typical, Hollywood affair, one would use an overbearing score to emphasize the drama in an explosive shootout. With No Country for Old Men, the film decides to go for a more subtler approach and instead relies on razor-sharp editing (which is ironically enough edited by the Coens under the pseudonym name, Roderick Jaynes) and lets the sound team do all the work for them with gunshots, sound effects, foley work, etc. One could even hear a pin drop during these sequences, like the Del Rio motel shootout or the Eagle Pass motel ambush.

As for the performances, everyone is perfectly cast and provide what might be some of their best work to date. I can't go any further without acknowledging the terrific work by Javier Bardem, who won his deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He's so eerie and creates such a presence that's felt all throughout the film. From his cold demeanor to his unnerving eyes, there's so much detail in Javier's layered performances that it's almost hard to recognize on one's first viewing. Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones are also terrific in their roles, and provide great work for characters that could've easily been clichéd archetypes within a neo-Western like this.

The screenplay written by the brothers also does an impeccable job telling the story. One gets the feeling that the duo not only knows how to set up the structure for audiences to follow, but also do a great job setting the world they put their characters within. One could even argue their style of quirky humor in a typical Coen brothers' film actually works the best here due to how dark the film is at times. It helps balance out the more gruesome violence you see within the 122-minute runtime.

There's also terrific cinematography by the great Roger Deakins, who provides the audience the visual landscape of the story without having to rely on flashy camera work. From scene one, you already know the film is showcasing a harsh reality of where the story might go from Anton murdering a police officer while in handcuffs. The way that's framed is so brutal, yet has such a striking image of Anton looking up, gritting his teeth as he's strangling the poor man. Even the overhead shot of Anton washing his wrists from putting tension on his wrists in cuffs still gives me chills.

There's much substance to find No Country For Old Men. Whether its in the outstanding performances, the terrific directing by the Coens, or the ideas revolving around chance and inevitability of fate, this is an amazing film and a great western to watch. If you haven't seen this flick yet, throw it on tonight and give it a watch. It's the kind of film that stays with you no matter how many times you've seen it.

🍿 SCORE = 97/100