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Review #106: No Country For Old Men
The premise is that in West Texas in the 1980s, a man called Llewelyn Moss stumbles across a bungled drugs deal in the middle of the desert while he's out hunting Pronghorn Antelope.
The area is littered with dead bodies and dead dogs and on searching the area, he finds a half dead man who begs him for water. Next to the dying man is a suitcase filled to the brim with $2m cash.
Llewelyn takes the cash without hesitation and leaves the dying man in the desert. Unwittingly Llewelyn has now become a target of a hitman called Anton Chigurh, a calculating and ice-cold killer and to boot is also a complete psychopath, who has been hired to recover the money.
Another fine piece of filmmaking from the Coen Brothers, this time based on a novel of the same name written by Cormack McCarthy.
No Country For Old Men gives the audience a look at adult themes and violence, exceptional acting and a hard hitting plot that is very rarely seen in Hollywood these days.
Most Hollywood flicks of this type go for action and humour combined, and then tone the whole lot down so that kids can watch. Instead, the Coen Brothers have built a world of adult content and hard faces that is a welcome breath of fresh air in the modern movie world.
The whole movie is pretty low tone and dark in it's themes, there's little to no humour involved throughout (apart from an inept Deputy Sheriff) and a lot of the screenplay is harsh on the viewer's senses.
The main part of No Country is that it's like this knowingly. It's meant to be dirty and grimy, dark and brooding.
The acting is by far though, what the movie is all about.
The ensemble cast really make an impression throughout.
Tommy Lee Jones as the Texas Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is fantastically uncomfortable in trying to figure out the series of disturbing events in his town. Sadly though, he's seen on screen as more of a supporting role in his own little side story.
Josh Brolin is at his moody best as Llewelyn Moss. He has an old soul about him and a quiet yet confident undertone that sets his character apart from most leading characters in films of this type.
Javier Bardem really shines in the role of Anton Chigurh. His quiet, unassuming demeanour is what makes the role so scary. He's like a cross between Norman Bates and something else. The overall character of Chigurh is also brilliantly written with his own twisted set of morals, to the point that you never know exactly what the character is actually going to do next.
Support from Woody Harrelson, Garret Dillahunt, Kelly Macdonald and Barry Corbin really gives the movie some weight.
There's no massive amounts of action through the film, but the little hits of gunplay that occasionally show up and some of the scenes involving Javier Bardem are really well put together and darkly exciting too.
All in all, not for everyone's taste, but definitely worth a watch simply because it's a genuinely well written and brilliantly plotted thriller, and the acting is top notch.
My rating 94%
The premise is that in West Texas in the 1980s, a man called Llewelyn Moss stumbles across a bungled drugs deal in the middle of the desert while he's out hunting Pronghorn Antelope.
The area is littered with dead bodies and dead dogs and on searching the area, he finds a half dead man who begs him for water. Next to the dying man is a suitcase filled to the brim with $2m cash.
Llewelyn takes the cash without hesitation and leaves the dying man in the desert. Unwittingly Llewelyn has now become a target of a hitman called Anton Chigurh, a calculating and ice-cold killer and to boot is also a complete psychopath, who has been hired to recover the money.
Another fine piece of filmmaking from the Coen Brothers, this time based on a novel of the same name written by Cormack McCarthy.
No Country For Old Men gives the audience a look at adult themes and violence, exceptional acting and a hard hitting plot that is very rarely seen in Hollywood these days.
Most Hollywood flicks of this type go for action and humour combined, and then tone the whole lot down so that kids can watch. Instead, the Coen Brothers have built a world of adult content and hard faces that is a welcome breath of fresh air in the modern movie world.
The whole movie is pretty low tone and dark in it's themes, there's little to no humour involved throughout (apart from an inept Deputy Sheriff) and a lot of the screenplay is harsh on the viewer's senses.
The main part of No Country is that it's like this knowingly. It's meant to be dirty and grimy, dark and brooding.
The acting is by far though, what the movie is all about.
The ensemble cast really make an impression throughout.
Tommy Lee Jones as the Texas Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is fantastically uncomfortable in trying to figure out the series of disturbing events in his town. Sadly though, he's seen on screen as more of a supporting role in his own little side story.
Josh Brolin is at his moody best as Llewelyn Moss. He has an old soul about him and a quiet yet confident undertone that sets his character apart from most leading characters in films of this type.
Javier Bardem really shines in the role of Anton Chigurh. His quiet, unassuming demeanour is what makes the role so scary. He's like a cross between Norman Bates and something else. The overall character of Chigurh is also brilliantly written with his own twisted set of morals, to the point that you never know exactly what the character is actually going to do next.
Support from Woody Harrelson, Garret Dillahunt, Kelly Macdonald and Barry Corbin really gives the movie some weight.
There's no massive amounts of action through the film, but the little hits of gunplay that occasionally show up and some of the scenes involving Javier Bardem are really well put together and darkly exciting too.
All in all, not for everyone's taste, but definitely worth a watch simply because it's a genuinely well written and brilliantly plotted thriller, and the acting is top notch.
My rating 94%
