AML Movie Review: “No Country for Old Men”

It took a long time, but I finally got out to the theater to see No Country for Old Men. But apparently, the title makes a wrong assumption, because at the theater I visited early on a Friday afternoon, the number of old people in attendance was almost more than seats available.

I ended up in the second row from the front, and while I really wanted to get up and leave so I could enjoy it more from a better vantage point, I found myself stuck in my seat, unable to leave.

The opening monologue from Tommy Lee Jones was basically the hook, line and sinker for me. He starts off by talking about how the old lawmen before him wouldn’t even carry a gun, but that he recently helped put a man in the electric chair.

The media described it as a crime of passion, but Jones’ character (Ed Bell) recalled the real story:

“He tolt me there weren’t nothin’ passionate about it. Said he’d been fixin’ to kill someone for as long as he could remember. Said if I let him out of there, he’d kill somebody again. Said he was goin’ to hell. Reckoned he’d be there in about 15 minutes.”

From that moment on the the movie grabs your attention and each move is spellbinding. There is a tension to the story right away that makes you realize this is something important, something scary, something dreadful.

After the opening by Jones, we find ourselves watching Llewelyn Moss, played by Josh Brolin, attempt to kill a wild deer in the middle of the Texas desert. After injuring the creature, he follows it and comes upon the bloodbath of a drug deal gone wrong. There is one man still alive, but barely, and he asks for water that Moss doesn’t have.

When he realizes that the last man standing in the gunfight is no longer around, he forgets the dying man, and tracks down the deserter only to find him dead from loss of blood under a tree. In his hands is a suitcase containing $2 million in cash.

Here is where Llewelyn realizes that there really is no trace that he was ever there, so he takes the suitcase, gets back to his truck and arrives safely home. But in the middle of the night, he awakes and finds the moral side of his being wont let him rest. He decides to go bring the dying man water.

This is where Llewelyn makes the mistake that propels the movie into it’s dark side.

He’s not the only one going back to the scene of the crime.

This time he leaves a clue behind about who he is, and that’s where Anton Chigurh really enters the movie. The last name sounds like “sugar” but I don’t think that’s exactly how you pronounce it.

Anton is played by Javier Bardem, who most likely will win the Best Supporting Actor nomination at this year’s Academy Awards. If I had a vote, it would be for the first two scenes he appears in.

The first is a moment when he’s handcuffed and the unsuspecting guard has no clue that he’s about to die. Anton sneaks up behind him and slips the cuffs over the guard’s head and chokes him to death.

But in choking the guard, Anton pulls him down on top of himself and the face he makes as he struggles is a cross between terror, determination and utter sadistic joy. It’s spooky, something I wont soon forget. Check out the photo to the right, you’ll see what I mean.

The next moment is early on when he’s getting gas in the vehicle he currently drives, and the attendant asks him a normal question just to make small talk. What happens next is a quiet, terrifying conversation where Anton demands that the man to call heads or tails, asking him what’s the most he lost on a coin toss.

Anton exudes evil and malice, and has to be rated as one of the best bad guys in the history of film. His weapons of choice are a cattle stun-gun and a shotgun with a huge silencer on the front. The stun-gun shoots out a quick metal slug via compressed air, that is then retracted just as fast.

It’s great on foreheads and door locks.

The movie becomes a game of cat and mouse in a way, with Anton trying to find the money, and Llewelyn attempting to stay alive. Ed Bell is the sheriff that is a step or three behind the action, trying to figure out what is happening.

I can’t say enough about the way the Coen brother’s took Cormac McCarthy’s book and put it on the screen. Granted, I’ve not read this one yet, but I’ve read two of his others and it seems quite like his style.

And from what I’ve read from other critics, it really did capture McCarthy’s vision.

So much so that the ending was even kept despite its blunt and somewhat questionable finish.

In fact, in my theater, when the movie ended…there were so many reactions from all around me that I wish I had a tape recorder. “That sucked” to “Well, that’s the Coen brothers” to “wow” or laughter and also silence.

Some movie goers don’t appreciate untidy endings. I find them awesome usually, even if I get extremely frustrated not knowing WHY it ended that way.

I wont give any of it away, but suffice it to say, I felt like it produced a reaction that most people will think on long after they leave the theater.

Definitely one of the best movies of the year, with a tricky ending, but a superb cast and some amazing acting. Heck, even Woody Harrelson gives a short, but worthy performance.

AML Rating: A