No Country for Old Men Review

There is something about the combination of Joel and Ethan Coen that far surpasses the ordinary. As writers, they take you on a slow but deeply involving journey. They reel you in with lilting dialogue that is all at once sharp, poetic and in this case sparse. In "No Country For Old Men" this powerhouse writing/directing duo do not disappoint. Based on the novel by legendary maverick writer Cormac McCarthy who is renowned for his tales set against the changing American West, this film is a modern day western and chase film rolled into one.

Josh Brolin stars as Llewelyn Moss a man with little money of his own who finds a large sum of it. The fact the money is surrounded by bodies does phase the hero but he stubbornly swears to keep it, telling his wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald) to stay put while he gets out of town for a while. Llewelyn is pursued by menacing killer, Anton Chigurgh (Javier Badem). The most entertaining scenes in the film involve their attempts to outwit each other. There is a playful respect, in Chigurgh's (pronounced "sugar") attempts to kill resourceful Vietnam veteran Llewelyn.

Carla Jean is friends' with local sheriff Bell played with great presence by Tommy Lee Jones. Bell suspects that Llewelyn's disappearance is linked in someway to the bodies that appeared on the same day and continue to mount up thanks to "sugar". Bell's own personal story is a melancholy undercurrent in this film, as a sheriff on the verge of retirement, questioning his career and haunted by a crime beyond his abilities to solve. Woody Harrelson makes a deftly played comedic appearance as a bounty hunter on the path of the money and in the path of Anton Chigurgh.

The film falls down where the novel does, in the lead up to the ending. Many viewers will be disappointed, hoping for a more conventional end and a more obvious hero. The underlining message of this film lies in the title "No Country for Old Men". The old man in question is sheriff Bell.