"Here last week they found this couple out in California. They rent out rooms for old people, kill'em, bury'em in the yard, cash their social security checks. Well, they'd tortur'em first, I don't know why. Maybe the television set was broke."
Now I was really looking forward to watching this movie. I mean, the Coen Brothers directing a movie about drugs and violence starring Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones sounds almost too good to be true, right? Well, to me, No Country has elements that are absolutely breathtaking, but it sadly has elements that fall flat as well.
The movie takes place in 1980's southern USA, where Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a hillbilly'ish welter/hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone sour. He finds a suitcase containing 2 million dollars which he decides to keep, and thus becomes the the target of a psychotic assassin portrayed masterfully by Javier Bardem. A double manhunt ensues, and Llewelyn Moss finds himself in the center of a bloody tornado of violence and ruthlessness. I call it a double manhunt because not only is Anton Chigurn (Bardem) trying to catch and kill Llewelyn, but and old sherif called Ed Tom Bell (Jones) is trying to find and arrest Bardem's character as well. The movie can be described as a chain, with the three main characters each symbolizing a link, one being a little ahead of the one behind it.
The mass murdering Anton Chigurn is the strongest link in this movie by far. I had head that Javier Bardem was amazing in this role before i watched No Country, but what i saw completely blew me away. There is no way you can prepare for what Bardem brings to the table, just no way in hell. The character is evil, menacing, cold hearted, psychotic, everything a mother in law would be afraid of. He's such an important part of this movie though, and i would actually go as far as to calling him the main character, because he simply is so vital to the over all message of the film. He has very little dialogue, a horrendous haircut and two infinitely cool weapons that he uses very frequently, and i totally ended up rooting for the guy. The fact that the big baddie of the movie in some kind of weird way ends up being the hero, or anti-hero if you will, is very telling, and it ties in perfectly to the message this film tries to get across.
Another great thing this movie has going for it is the way it's directed. Theres something about the way No Country For Old Men is put together that instantly got me fascinated, and though it's hard to explain to someone who's not seen it, i believe those who have will agree when i say that is has a haunting coldness to it, and I believe this is mainly due to the lack of music or background noise in almost all of the scenes. I only remember hearing anything in the background of like two or three scenes, which is not a lot in a two hour movie, and this serves to create a very toned down and lonely, yet suspenseful and enthralling tone. In this case less definitely is more. The movie looks gorgeous, everything from the wast desert areas of Texas to the bleeding corpses left behind by Anton Chigurn kinda pops out in a non 3D-kinda way, and at first i was happy to find out that the Coen Brothers were awarded the best director academy award for their work on this movie (more on this later). This is largely due to the lasting impression that this movie leaves the audience with. Theres no pat on the head, no reassuring that everything is gonna be fine. It's hard to explain this in too much detail without spoiling the ending and the message of the movie, but it's actually quite haunting.
Sadly, there were times during this movie that i would have wished the Coens would have sticked to their less is more approach, and by this i mean the Tomme Lee Jones parts. Granted, Jones did a great job of displaying a struggling elderly sherif full of regrets, and i do acknowledge that his character is vital to the main theme of the movie, but honestly, theres just too much of him. I'we read that when writing the script for this movie, the amount of dialogue in the book that it's based on, was drastically reduced by Coens in an effort to create a more eery and ruthless atmosphere. This worked great with Bardem's and Brolin's characters, bur for some reason, it seems as though they forgot to reduce the amount of dialogue from Tom Bell. Some may think that this would diminish the message the movie was trying to get across, but honestly, it worked with the other characters, why not this one?
Many occurrences in this movie aren't explained in detail, something i don't mind at all. I love having to think things through and sort of come up with my own explanation to certain parts of movies, something no country for old men does as well, kinda. Most parts of the film follows this principle nicely, but its almost as if the directors tried too hard force-feed the meaning of Tommy Lee Jones' character. As a result, the movie feels like it's way longer than it actually is, and i found myself getting annoyed every time Tommy Lee Jones got on screen. The last ten minutes are nothing but him talking, talking and talking, and by then i just wanted the movie to end. The plot was finished, the message had been delivered, but it just kept on going, which is a damn shame. All in all, the elements of this movie that were awesome were really awesome, and the elements that annoyed me really annoyed me.
The Coen Brothers won three oscars for this movie, one for best director(s), one for best adapted screenplay, and one for best picture. I don't agree with theses decisions. When i got to think about it, There Will Be Blood was superior both in terms of directing and dialogue, and i over all thought it was a great deal better than No Country For Old Men, and therefore don't believe it was worthy of best picture. Maybe this is just because I'm a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fanboy, who knows, but this is my blog God damn it, I'll write whatever I want! (this last sentence should be read aloud with the accent of a middle aged black woman). When it comes down to it, No Country For Old Men is worth the watch because of Javier Bardem, the acting in general and the amazing atmosphere that is present in 80 % of the scenes, but the irritating part was just way too irritating for me to give it my seal of approval. Look up Javier's scenes on youtube and you will have watched the best parts of this movie. Sorry Tommy. (3/6)
No Country For Old Men IMDb page here
No Country For Old Men trailer here
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