No Country for Old Men

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PLOT:
A major drug deal gone wrong in the Texas desert goes further awry when the money is recovered by a veteran-cum-local-trailer-inhabitant. The local sheriff tries to restore equilibrium to their picturesque homeland, yet ultimately realises he can no longer maintain a patriarchal influence over his people and their fates.

REVIEW:
There is much to be praised in the Coen Brothers' second masterpiece, which is different but equal to Fargo (1996). There's the menacing but somehow profoundly moral bounty hunter, played ghoulishly but with a touch of humour by Javier Bardem; the flawless, effortless performance of Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff; the incredible cinematography; and the overall poetry of the picture.

Yet the greatest achievement of No Country for Old Men is a spine-tingling, soul-destroying sequence in the middle of the film chronicling the events before and after local veteran Josh Brolin realises that the two million dollar suitcase he has recovered contains a tracking device. You could even ignore all other highlights and this sequence would still ensure the film's triumph.

ELEPHANT STAMPS:
The Coen Brothers for Directing.
Roger Deakins for Cinematography.
Tommy Lee Jones for Acting.
Javier Bardem for Acting.
Josh Brolin for Acting.

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No Country for Old Men

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Skimming through all of the other reviews, it appears that whether this movie is rated highly or not everyone agrees that it begins really strong but loses steam about 2/3 of the way through.

I enjoyed the film...but you can put me in that category as well.

The first half is some of the Coen Brothers' best filmmaking. The actors are particularly strong in their roles and the storytelling is lean and driven. Javier Bardem makes the movie, portraying the unstoppable "ghost" (not a literal one but something an old law man likens him to) always one step behind everyone...or ahead of them. Everyone else you get a good sense of, but this guy you'd like to see more of, like to try to understand more.

But the last section of the film isn't as tight and seamless as the first half. To open a story so well with so little exposition and dialogue, the filmmakers leave us with a unsensational downer ending that looks (sorry) sloppy and undeveloped.

Still, a great movie, but--in a weird way--like THE BIG LEBOWSKI: fascinating characters, excellent scenes, compellingly watchable...but uneven.

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No Country for Old Men

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The Coen brothers give us a cinematic bloodbath, but with a message- Old People don't like this sort of thing. People just don't have manners anymore. It used to be that when people killed people in movies, back in the good ol' days when old people were young, they got what was comin' to them. Now we live in a messed up world where serial killers murder people with compressed air canisters, and they don't feel sorry for it.
The point of all this on-screen killing is for Old Man Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) to philosophize in barely decipherable mumblings how it's all gone down the toilet, and people weren't cruel to each other back in World War 2 and such. Was his character even necessary? He certainly didn't move the plot forward any. I guess the film needed a conscience.
There are many similarities with this movie and Fargo. Except Fargo was better, and won less Oscars.
"No Country.." was not the "best picture" from that year, though very few Oscar winners ever are.

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