No Country For Old Men

Review By Matthew Rodgers

When Javier Bardem’s psychopathically passive killer Anton Chirgurh places the cattle gun against an innocent mans head and unapologetically pulls the trigger in an act of extreme violence it will shock you to the very core. A sucker punch to the emotions that will be hard to shake, it’s a perfect analogy for a faultless movie that finds a way to get inside your head, heart, and funny-bone, mess with them a bit and then let you go without so much as a cathartic thank you.

The Coen Brothers “return to form”, as it is being officially heralded is a stunning adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning contemporary Western novel. Set in 1980’s Texas amidst a desert landscape inhabited by society’s peripheral odd-balls, similar territory to the Coen’s previous snow capped classic Fargo, Llwellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) discovers the remnants of a drug-deal gone awry and a whole heap of cash. Making the decision to take the money leads him down a destructive path, all the while pursued by Bardem’s cash collecting killer towards a climax that will haunt you for hours, and one you are never likely to forget.

A tri-narrative chase movie that is both tense and lugubriously contemplative, No Country for Old Men is a parable on the folly of man. Temptation, redemption and regret seep through the characters, most notably Tommy Lee-Jones as the wisened Sheriff who remains one-step behind the cat-and-mouse exchanges and whose narration provides proceedings with a poetic melancholy that compliments the slow-burn fate of the main players. Brolin backs up his impressive turn in American Gangster as the opportunist Moss, unable to pigeon hole him as the films hero you still afford him the empathy of a man given the chance to escape the cards that life has dealt him, something that the Sheriff has accepted and Bardem’s killer has embraced. And it’s this role that will draw the plaudits; an unrelenting monster of a creation who shuffles with the intimidation of Michael Myers but offers a glimpse of humanity as he chances his victims’ fate at the flip of a coin.

Perfect material for The Coen Brothers – who are now recognised as a singular entity by the academy should justice prevail and their names emerge from that envelope come March – and crackling with the blackest of comedy that has become their signature. What’s noticeable about No Country is how unforced everything is, previous Coen efforts have perhaps been heightened by colourful characters – think Lebowski – so instead we have real people captured by a fluidity of camera that traverses the breathtaking cinematography of Roger Deakins and a sparsely used soundtrack to compliment them.

Then there’s that ending. Cinema is designed to get people talking, to move them, and to stimulate them. The final ten minutes is bravely un-Hollywood but loyal to the source material, it will leave some cold, some elated and most frustrated but the unanimous conclusion that they have witnessed a modern masterpiece.