No Country for Old Men (2007)
Director
Joel & Ethan Coen
Writer
Joel & Ethan Coen (Screenplay)
Cormac McCarthy (Novel)
Cast
Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson
After almost two months of being unable to find playing at a theater anywhere near me I finally got a chance to see it in Olney, Illinois. So kudos to the Arcadia Theater. I've been extremely excited to see this movie since I first heard it announced and there was no way I would be disappointed especially after seeing crap like AVP:R.
Llewelyn Moss (Brolin) is minding his hunting in the desert near his home in Texas when he comes across the scene of a drug deal gone wrong and a case full of money. On his tale is the creepy and unsympathetic Anton Chigurh (Bardem) who will stop a nothing to get the money he was hired to collect and kill the man who has inconvenienced him and anyone he is associated with. And the man in the middle of all is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell who is desperately trying to save Moss and his wife.
No Country for Old Men is nothing short of excellence. Having already read the novel a year or so ago and seeing the Coen brothers taking the helm I was anticipating the best and that's what I got.
Chigurh is absolutely the scariest character I've seen put on film. Whoever he confronts you immediately feel sorry for them. Maybe he's the angel of death or maybe he's a lunatic with a strict homicidal code. He is a very complex character as are the other characters but in such a subtle way that you want to learn more about them. Most of the characters are veterans of war, be it Vietnam or WWII, but even in a time of peace they're still fighting.
Some people will think the point of the story is that "greed destroys everything" but that's not the point. Actually the money becomes irrelevant quickly as it really doesn't matter who ends up with it. It's more about chance and fate as Moss exhaustingly tries to change his fate, Chigurh encounters victims entirely by chance and even let's a coin decide their fate in some cases and Bell knowing that you can't stop what's coming.
The first half of the film will definitely appeal to mainstream audiences as it's fast-pace, exciting, gory and very conventional. The second half will take you in a path that you won't see coming at all. It's very satisfying even to mainstream audiences until the very end in which it may piss some people off. To me the ending was fantastic and very, very emotional, the film may not end conventionally but it ends logically.
The movie is pretty faithful to the book other than changing some scenes (hotel shootout,) moving scenes around (mostly Bell's scenes,) and a few things cut out of it. One change that didn't set well with me was Bell's conversation with the old man in the wheelchair. The conversation is changed quite a bit in the book from what I remember but the conversation in the film made it come off as "the world's always been this fucked up" which goes against the title of the movie. Nothing huge as most of the changes worked really well.
This is an extremely tense and emotional ride that will jar you to the core and will make you think long after you left the theater. Although I haven't seen many of the great films of 2007 I'd say No Country for Old Men is, without a doubt, the best film I've seen in 2007.
10/10
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