The film is based on the Cormac McCarthy novel, the story follows Llewelyn Moss wonderfully underplayed by Josh Brolin, who whilst hunting on the wide expansive Texan landscape, stumbles upon a drug deal gone sour. Amongst numerous trucks, firearms, heroin packs, and deceased gangsters, Llewelyn finds a survivor, barely holding onto life and in desperate need of water; leaving the survivor and the heroin Llewellyn then tracks the money and steals it from the departed owner. Making a clean getaway, Llewellyn is in the clear and no one can track him or the two-million dollars he’s stolen, but his conscience gets the better of him, forcing him to return to the scene with water for the survivor, but someone has been there already and executed his charitable cause. Llewellyn is then attacked by two unknowns, and barely escapes with his life, and so the chase is on. This film is a game of cat and mouse, Llewellyn is the mouse but the cat is the more interesting character, Anton Chigurh, a cold, vindictive, psychopathic hit man played with utter menace by the unfaultable Javier Bardem. Chigurh’s status as one of the greatest screen villains is all but guaranteed; he is completely mesmerising in the worst possible way, never take your eye off him for fear of what he may do. Interestingly for the antagonist of the film, Chigurh’s character is the first we’re introduced to, dominates the films narrative and in many ways is of greater importance than Llewellyn’s protagonist. Chigurh kills without mercy or compassion, in brutal but effective ways, as both psychotic and assassin he embodies both of mans worst fears of other men – the irrational and professional killer. Bardem can not be praised enough for his portrayal of evil personified, no-one else could have made a character so sinister in spite of such a ridiculous hair-cut. He is a character so well crafted that in lesser directorial hands he would have surely stolen the show, but under the helm of the Coen brothers, there is nothing left to steal. Every scene in the film is memorable, and every detail has been carefully thought through with the usual Coen zeal; they have once again proved themselves kings of the modern thriller after an extended absence from arguably their strongest genre. No Country For Old Men re-defines tension, and the Coen Brothers are literally using every trick in the Hitchcockian book, and then inventing some of their own. One sequence in particular, a stand off in a motel, involves four separate tension building devices in synchronisation, a telephone, a tracking device, a corridor light, and the knowledge that our villain has the peculiar habit of breaking locks by shunting them through the door handle with an air gun. The sequence needs to be seen to be believed, to say anymore would be to spoil the content, but by the end of it, the audience is desperate for the film to cut away, to anything, to safety, the tension is literally unbearable. The briefest moments of humour are more than welcome to allow the audience to breathe a short sigh of relief after having their nerves literally shredded. This film is exhausting, as tense as the tenser scenes of Funny Games or Alien, and as creatively violent as The Way of the Gun. The first five minutes sets us up in this regard, with two brutal and shocking murders, both as inventive as the best Six Feet Under death scenes. From here on in we know that almost no-one is safe. Not only that but the Coen’s have managed to capture the feeling of impact from bullets that only Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann had been able to previously, every gun shot a character takes on screen feels like it has hit you as well, with no dampening of the initial force.
A contestable and already heavily debated statement, but the opinion of this reviewer: No Country for Old Men is the finest work produced by the Coen Brothers to date. It is the first film to be seriously considered in this regard since Fargo. This status puts it quite easily in the running for best American film of the year, with only Zodiac providing any kind of real competition. Some audience members have already protested at the films ending which through originality and ambiguity may leave traditionalist wanting more, or disappointed in final conclusion. Others will see the same issues as the films triumphant finish, the final seal on its status as a truly inspired piece of art and a clear sign that the Coen brothers are not only back on form, but they have never been better. M. Dawson |
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The Directors: Something of an anomaly. A pair of vibrant, original, daring film makers, who have avoided the often obligatory sell out, and achieved their unique status without ever resorting to wider controversy or shock tactics to get their work noticed. The Coen brothers can move between outlandish so-called “screw ball” comedies, to straight played psychological thrillers without taking a breath. Their versatility has then subsequently allowed them to successfully amalgamate their styles with breathtaking results. In careers spanning three decades and twelve films, they can never be accused of making the same film twice, and some viewers would contend that they have never taken a misstep; with perhaps only their remake of The Ladykillers sitting in wider contention with that notion. With the challenging, moody thriller, Blood Simple their genius was already present to see as the tension racked up for an incredible final sequence of what is still their straightest film to date. Next was Raising Arizona proving the reverse with one of the oddest comedies produced in the 80’s. Their status as serious film makers would later be solidified with Miller's Crossing which can simultaneously be described as a blood thirsty gangster drama, a murder mystery, and a black comedy. With an unpredictable story structure, darker characters punctuated with moments of extreme violence, Miller’s Crossing stands proud. But what was really noticeable was the remarkable attention to dialogue, virtually creating a new language with relatively cryptic gangster lingo circled by razor sharp wit. Barton Fink showed more of their dark side with a less commercially viable film, which is as difficult to define generically as anything else they’ve produced and features possibly their most elusive climax. The Hudsucker Proxy was the first time they’d been given a substantial budget to play with, it’s unfortunate commercial failure detracted from what is an adorable and intelligent family comedy continuing their bespoke snappy dialogue. Contending for status as their best film is Fargo, which received Oscar attention, and brought them to a wider public light than previously. Interestingly Fargo can be seen as their most conventional film, it is the only film which can be compared with any of their other films, and although there are some similarities with Blood Simple, Fargo is still predominantly original. It’s also the film which has enjoyed the most praise over the years. Again repeating the tradition of moving from genre to genre, The Big Lebowski took them in another direction, O’Brother Where Art Thou? then extended their journey and proved to the world that George Clooney can act, in one of the oddest musicals to ever be filmed. The Comedy to Drama switch occurred again with one of their coldest and most experimental films The Man Who Wasn’t There, shot in crisp monochrome it’s also their most visually distinctive film. Later it was reversed by the warmth and comical vibrancy of Intolerable Cruelty. Truly they are indefinable film makers, dedicated to no genre or style, they are reclusive but also egoless – there is never a sense of their status going to their heads, no pretentiousness and virtually no sign of them dulling in the golden years of their careers.
The Film: Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There. In their careers to date, Joel and Ethan Coen have produced a number of serious films as listed above; but most have either been tinged with humour or so removed from reality that most viewers are still shielded from their brutality. Not since their first film, Blood Simple, have the Coen brothers been this serious, straight or violent in their approach to a film. If the Coen brothers were to make No Country For Old Men their last feature (which is not possible as their next project is already into production) they would have come perfectly full circle, arriving back in the deep south, with a story that shares a lot of common ground with their impressive debut.
Unusually for the Coen brothers, there is virtually no non-diegetic sound present throughout the entire film; the auditory contribution to the tension is dictated by the excellently crafted sound design. This is one major change on the part of the brothers, but Joel and Ethan Coen are nothing if not original, they have never made the same film twice, and No Country For Old Men is no exception, cold, brutal, meditative, and most importantly - philosophical. Through its prism of unique and faultlessly crafted characters it makes a subtextual comment on the rage buried in the American psyche, and the desire to maintain traditional values whilst painting a grim picture of the amoral present and future. Make no mistake, this is as complex and as intellectually stimulating as the Coen Brothers have ever been, and most of this new found reflective nature can be attributed to McCarthy’s novel. The story has several dangerous stings in its tail, with almost no place left safe from the prevailing and penetrative evil. Credit must also go to the biggest name in the cast; keeping everything to one canvas is Tommy Lee Jones as the Sheriff Ed Tom Bell who is always three steps behind both Chigurh and Llewelyn finding decomposing corpses and extrapolating the movements of our central characters through their various crime scenes. Bell is not only the films moral compass, he is also the safety zone for ninety-nine percent of the time until the films final scenes Bell in never in danger, and along with the occasional joke provides a safe haven away from films regular instances of violence. Along with his performance in last years Three Burials, Jones is again proving himself to be an acting talent to be taken seriously away from the absurd and financially motivated roles in features like Batman Forever and Under Siege, he has now clearly returned to artistically credible parts like the days of The Fugitive and Blue Heaven. Woody Harrelson is also solid as an expositional character, coolly providing the background of the antagonist and contributing to a more ominous context for Llewellyn’s knife-edge existence by explaining how Chigurh transcends conventional morality. Kelly Macdonald provides a more sympathetic victim in the mix as a true innocent caught up in a world she didn’t ask for and doesn’t understand. As is typical with the Coen’s, there are no small roles in this film; even the most minor character gets detailed attention. Equally typical is the films outstanding dialogue, and delivery without cliché is in this instance is fairly difficult; a Sheriff waxing lyrical about the good old days, or a serial killer flipping a coin to decide if his victim will live or die; neither are completely original, but through the Coen brother’s execution it is hard to notice.
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