No Country For Old Men (2007)

Written and Directed by The Coen Brothers

Here stands a West Texas crime saga that stands up as the Coen Brothers' greatest accomplishment since they stormed filmdom with their debut Texas noir 'Blood Simple'. From the opening shots of the empty Texas landscapes, a drama unfolds in these barren fields when Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) comes accross the aftermath of a brutal shootout while out hunting. He discovers what inspired the shootout, a pick-up truck bed full of heroin. After carefully surveying the scene, Llewelyn sees a trail of blood and using his tracking skills follows it to the shade of a tree, where he finds the last man standing from the gun battle, only this hombre is sitting, and he's dead as a doornail. Here Llewelyn finds $2 million in a black satchel. He makes a choice to take the money and head home, without notifying anyone of the gruesome scene he came accross.

Llewelyn lives in a small town in Terrell County Texas, whose Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and his deputy finally come accross the murder scene. Sheriff Bell is able to deduct what has happened at the scene, and upon discovering Llewelyn's truck, Bell knows that Llewelyn's life is going to be on the line if he's the one that ended up with the money.

Right from the opening the audience is introduced to the 'ultimate bad ass' Anton Chigurh, who makes a murderous escape from the local law enforcement. The camera follows Anton on his spree, as he slowly tracks the money, and sure enough Moss, brutally killing anyone that he comes across. His cold, complacent, and darkly humorous attitude is a telltale sign that killing is his profession, and he does his work well.

No Country For Old Men is thin on plot, but rich in subtext. It's about the difference, and the connection, of choice and chance, or as some would call it, fate. In one instance, Anton stops at a small roadside gas station, and through words alone, he plays a deadly game with the owner. The owner has lived in this town his whole life, and as is revealed in the conversation with Anton, he came to own the place by chance of marriage. The two men battle through conversation, and Anton makes his intentions clear, but being a man of certain principles, he makes it obvious that coin toss is the only thing that could save the man's life. As chance has it, the man lives.

To reveal any more about the plot would be a disservice to potential viewers. The rest of the film is part cat and mouse chase between Anton and Llewelyn, part philosophic questioning of the lives the characters involved lead. Sheriff Bell talks with various characters about how he came into the life of law enforcement, and he muses on how his life would have been different had his choices been not the ones he made.

Llewelyn's life also takes turns based on the life he has chosen since taking the money he found. He is forced to live an existence that, in afterthought, is not worth the money he's taken. Still, he accepts and lives with his choices, and makes further ones that will impact his and his wife's futures.

The Coen Brothers are modern masters, and in many sequences throughout the film, they display a Hitchcockian ability to create tense scenes where the viewer is completely aware of what has led these characters to these instances of chance and fate. In some cases, characters live purely because they are not essential players in the drama that unfolds at the behest of the stolen money. Anton makes it clear that obtaining the money is not his only goal. He lives a life of principal, and the final scenes of the movie reveal how he incorporates these principals into his life, and in the end, chance even takes its toll on Anton. He accepts this, as he understands that for every person that left with their life due to chance, could have also had it taken for the same reason. He experiences chance first hand in the final moments of the film, while Sheriff Bell's choices force him to accept what he has chosen, it is too late for chance to save him from his Earthly duties.

Woody Harrelson, Stephen Root, and a broad cast of bit characters also experience the wrath of their individual fates through either choice, or chance, and each of these characters is able to delineate the difference, some of them accepting their fate, others trying to change it. Even when their lives are spared, they are forced to live with the consequences of their actions, or on the other side of the coin, the benefits of their chance escapes.

Even after the stolen money is no longer a part of the drama, Anton sticks to what he knows, and the promises he has made, dire as they may be. These characters all face the internal struggle of their lives in the simplest of terms, from a coin toss, to a husband's wrong choices. A lot of important plot elements in this film are unseen to the viewer, although they are still readily apparent. The point is not seeing what happened, but knowing why the actions took place, and what choices or chances led to their ultimate fates.

Josh Brolin is a Texas good ole boy who knows what he has done, and he is willing to fight tooth and nail to justify his previous actions. Javier Bardem creates the first great screen villian of the 21st centure. Neither character ever recants, never regrets their choices or their paths in life. Llewelyn was aware of his actions when he performed them, as is Anton. The difference between the two men comes down to the choices they made on the type of lives they decided to live. The same goes for Sheriff Bell, who at the end of the film quietly resigns to accept the choices he made in life, reguardless of the fact that they were wrong or right at the time of the doing. This film isn't about what is show on screen, rather, it's about the inner turmoil created in each character by the actions that have happened. There is so much in between the lines of each scene, that second, third, and fourth viewings will be required, not because the viewer missed something, but because there is so much happening in each scene that each viewing will invoke a different reaction and thought pattern of the viewer every time they watch it.

This is as good a thriller as the Coen Brothers have ever made, I dare say it's their best film since Blood Simple, not only because the films are similar in tone, style, and setting, but because each film is a thought, a psychological study of the characters and setting the film is based on. Here is a timeless classic from the Brothers Coen, a fine return to form of moral ambiguity after many years spent on simpler, lighter films. If this doesn't make it onto every person's top 3 list for the year in movies, either they haven't seen it, or they watched a different film than I did today. Quite simply, this is what a masterpiece is made of, one of the few films I think is perfect in every way, shape and form. Must be seen to be believed.

9.9/10