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Customer Rating:   
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Product Description
The Coen brothers make their finest thriller since Fargo with a restrained adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. Not that there aren't moments of intense violence, but No Country for Old Men is their quietest, most existential film yet. In this modern-day Western, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet who could use a break. One morning while hunting antelope, he spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies (both human and canine). In examining the site, he finds a case filled with $2 million. Moss takes it with him, tells his wife (Kelly Macdonald) he's going away for awhile, and hits the road until he can determine his next move. On the way from El Paso to Mexico, he discovers he's being followed by ex-special ops agent Chigurh (an eerily calm Javier Bardem). Chigurh's weapon of choice is a cattle gun, and he uses it on everyone who gets in his way--or loses a coin toss (as far as he's concerned, bad luck is grounds for death). Just as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a World War II vet, is on Moss's trail, Chigurh's former colleague, Wells (Woody Harrelson), is on his. For most of the movie, Moss remains one step ahead of his nemesis. Both men are clever and resourceful--except Moss has a conscience, Chigurh does not (he is, as McCarthy puts it, "a prophet of destruction"). At times, the film plays like an old horror movie, with Chigurh as its lumbering Frankenstein monster. Like the taciturn terminator, No Country for Old Men doesn't move quickly, but the tension never dissipates. This minimalist masterwork represents Joel and Ethan Coen and their entire cast, particularly Brolin and Jones, at the peak of their powers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Customer Review(s)
Customer Rating: Summary: Disturbing Comment: People have criticized the random violence and "empty" ending of this film. I am no fan of gratuitous violence or inconclusive messages, so it surprised me that I loved this movie so much. After reading many reviews and comments on Amazon, I agreed with some of the negative points people made about the film. But they didn't change my mind.
This is because No Country for Old Men succeeds in embodying fear. Bad-guy Anton is the most frightening figure since Hannibal Lecter. Why? Because he is intelligent and on a soul-less mission to kill. Again: this alone does not make a film good - not by a long shot. Yet as opposed to other figures in murderous-rampage cinema (take Natural Born Killers, which claims to have a "message"), this character's made to look plain and ugly, and is no shining beacon of Hollywood that we secretly sympathize with because we know him from other, gentler roles. At least for the American movie scene, Bardem comes out of nowhere, and that helps make his character alien and unlikeable, and us feel uncomfortable and disturbed in his on-screen presence.
Anton and his mission, seen in the context of the film - the dawn of the drug war - brings me back to the character embodying fear. How many drug-related deaths have we seen in the States in the last decades? How many innocent people have lost their lives, or survived, by pure (or bad) luck, like the toss of a coin? Anton embodies (the fear of) this randomness. It's ugly and scary, it comes and disappears, worst of all never answering the question "why". That, to me, is the crowning achievement of the story. Putting that on the big screen is indeed amazing and is, among other reasons, why I am so floored by the film.
If you decide to see No Country for Old Men, don't do it because of the hype about the Coen brothers, the awards, or my commentary. This film means something different to everyone, and you may say it's just a waste of time. Or you may end up agreeing with me that it's a masterpiece. I'll go flip a coin now and see what you decide.
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