No Country for Old MenThe West was never really won. Laws and lawlessness are eternal, because the vices and punishments, and the individual's interpretation of the morality will always vary. In the end, we always answer to ourselves as much as we answer to others for our actions. This is the deeper message spread across the film, No Country for Old Men. This masterpiece by the illustrious Coen Brothers focuses on three individuals--Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), and Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem)--each motivated by a desire that is intrinsic to their character. Their intersecting motivations and their own method of resolving their conflict make up the meat of the story.
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Llewelyn is a hunter and maybe a poacher without much money (he saves his shell casings, lives in a trailer, and so on), until he stumbles onto the aftermath of a drug deal-turned-shootout. Llewelyn is also a cagey tracker; when he discovers a case filled with $2 million, he doesn't hesitate (for long, at least) to keep the money, but is wise enough not to go on a spending spree with it. He is also knowledgeable about guns, enough to know when to equip himself with an appropriated short-range submachine gun, and craft a sawed-off shotgun later. Llewelyn is no fool, and can survey a situation for danger in most cases, and rarely underestimates his opponent, who in this case is usually Anton Chigurh. But he's human, just like the rest of us. What would you do if you just found $2 million? Would you really turn around and leave it there for someone else to claim? It is ironic that it is his humanity which gets him into deep trouble with the drug cartel he has stolen from, when he brings water back to a dying man he doesn't even know; it's not his greed which pulls him under, not really. Llewelyn is kept alive for the most part by his cunning and his paranoia, his ability to think akin to his harrier. Others like Anton's rival professional killer, Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) just view Chigurh as another psycho; by underestimating his target, he is inevitably left at a disadvantage. Conversely, when Llewelyn is humble, he is at his most deadly. All of these details are communicated visually with almost no--if any--exposition. The sign of a master artist is the ability to draw out the strengths of the medium without resorting to extraneous labor; the sign of a master storyteller is to respect your audience enough to let them draw their own conclusions and provide them entertainment that does not necessitate ancillary content to reinforce the plot. If No Country for Old Men gave us only Llewelyn, it would still be enough to say that Joel and Ethan Coen had given us enough proof of their craftsmanship in our first scenes with him to justify that praise--they go two further, and give us the terrifying sociopath Anton and the wistful, even melancholy Ed, doing largely the same with them.
There is rarely--if ever--a dull moment in No Country for Old Men. Not only is the plot a fascinating thriller, fraught with paranoid fear and tense moments of characters with loaded guns waiting in the shadows for the time to strike, but the Coen Brothers exercise their ability to capture the American voice like no other filmmakers. Set primarily in varying parts of Texas, the characters of the film have dialogue saturated in the local parlance. And while it might be enough for some filmmakers to simply have their characters hash out idioms in Texan twang, the Coens avoid satire in this film but do not revoke the local color in the process. For instance, in the case of Ed, who is very intelligent--but not always a perfect detective--the colloquialisms (they seem to come so natural for Tommy Lee Jones) serve to identify to the viewer when he has a handle on a situation; it's more disconcerting when they stop. And in the case of Anton, his virtually complete lack of an accent--in contrast with the rest--instinctively sets us on edge in his presence, just as it does the other characters...he simply is not one of their kind. The scene that highlights this the best is his infamous coin toss game in the gas station, terrifying the humble clerk in a way that is positively alien, overflowing with tension. He plies the attendant with manipulative jabs about fate and condescending threats. Anton is a cruel, apex predator, literally playing with his prey, and successfully illuminating why we don't like him. Aside from simply being a cold killer, he is like a virus, a foreign entity that is inscrutable and devoid of humanity. Even his weapon of choice--the "captive bolt pistol" he carts around--is primarily used to slaughter cattle, and is thus representative of his contempt for society. And it is also ironic that as Llewelyn is first seen hunting deer, it is Anton who later hunts him; they even follow their quarry's trail of blood the same way. Anton Chigurh: the embodiment of an incomprehensible evil, who clings to a kind of cheap, pulp noir code of ethics to justify his sociopathic urges. His weapon: air; his demeanor: mellow. Oh, what a brave new world that has such people in it. How do you survive in a world where you don't understand the rules? That is the hypothetical question posed by Ed Tom Bell at the start of the film. Only, like all questions about life, there are no answers...none that we could stomach, anyways.
Recommended for: Fans of suspenseful thrillers with extremely complex characters, colorful dialogue, and lots of action. A vast and lovely pastoral of "big sky" country...and what lurks within the shadows of the ominous clouds above.
There is rarely--if ever--a dull moment in No Country for Old Men. Not only is the plot a fascinating thriller, fraught with paranoid fear and tense moments of characters with loaded guns waiting in the shadows for the time to strike, but the Coen Brothers exercise their ability to capture the American voice like no other filmmakers. Set primarily in varying parts of Texas, the characters of the film have dialogue saturated in the local parlance. And while it might be enough for some filmmakers to simply have their characters hash out idioms in Texan twang, the Coens avoid satire in this film but do not revoke the local color in the process. For instance, in the case of Ed, who is very intelligent--but not always a perfect detective--the colloquialisms (they seem to come so natural for Tommy Lee Jones) serve to identify to the viewer when he has a handle on a situation; it's more disconcerting when they stop. And in the case of Anton, his virtually complete lack of an accent--in contrast with the rest--instinctively sets us on edge in his presence, just as it does the other characters...he simply is not one of their kind. The scene that highlights this the best is his infamous coin toss game in the gas station, terrifying the humble clerk in a way that is positively alien, overflowing with tension. He plies the attendant with manipulative jabs about fate and condescending threats. Anton is a cruel, apex predator, literally playing with his prey, and successfully illuminating why we don't like him. Aside from simply being a cold killer, he is like a virus, a foreign entity that is inscrutable and devoid of humanity. Even his weapon of choice--the "captive bolt pistol" he carts around--is primarily used to slaughter cattle, and is thus representative of his contempt for society. And it is also ironic that as Llewelyn is first seen hunting deer, it is Anton who later hunts him; they even follow their quarry's trail of blood the same way. Anton Chigurh: the embodiment of an incomprehensible evil, who clings to a kind of cheap, pulp noir code of ethics to justify his sociopathic urges. His weapon: air; his demeanor: mellow. Oh, what a brave new world that has such people in it. How do you survive in a world where you don't understand the rules? That is the hypothetical question posed by Ed Tom Bell at the start of the film. Only, like all questions about life, there are no answers...none that we could stomach, anyways.
Recommended for: Fans of suspenseful thrillers with extremely complex characters, colorful dialogue, and lots of action. A vast and lovely pastoral of "big sky" country...and what lurks within the shadows of the ominous clouds above.