No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is directed by the hugely talented duo,the Coen brothers and based on the book of the same name by author Cormac McCarthy. It is a chilling and disturbing tale that uses raw performances by its lead actors to bring action and drama to the fore. The story begins with Llewelyn Moss, Josh Brolin finding a pickup truck filled with heroin and cash and twenty dead men around it.

Rating: 3/5

Moss takes off with the money and is pursued by the Sheriff Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones who is ironically trying to save his life from a ruthless killer. He is helped in this by a greenhorn Wendell, Garret Dillahunt. The mysterious man Anton Chiguhr, played by Javier Bardem is after Moss to retrive the stolen goods. He tosses coins before killing men and uses a cattle stun gun for the same. His other killing devices include a twelve gauge autoloading shotgun and he is a master auto surgeon to boot. You also see another man,Carson Wells, played by Woody Harrelson out to get back the loot or to kill Chiguhr.

Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men

The drama unfolds as you see Moss running from his pursuers who want their money back and you see similarities with happenings in today’s world. Moss tries hard to survive with limited resources and his ingenuity.You also witness the world weariness of Sheriff Bell as he tries to come to terms with the ruthlessness and bloodshed perpetrated by the drug warlords in his territory.

The portrayal of Anton Chiguhr as he undertakes games of chance before executing his marked man is chilling to say the least and will make you cringe with fear. Josh Brolin has come of age as an actor especially in the solitary conversations he has with himself in much of the film. Tommy Lee Jones is great as the gold-hearted Sheriff caught in a complex web not of his making. All the actors deliver stellar and gripping performances that holds the film tightly till the end. Minor roles of Carla Jean Moss wife of Llewelyn Moss, played by Kelly MacDonald and Loretta Bell , wife of the Sheriff ,essayed by Tess Harper also lend character to the film.

Tommy Lee Jones in No Country for Old Men

The filmmakers have remained faithful to the original story that captures the badlands of West Texas in all their glory. You have to piece together the flow of the film from verbal cues and be an active participant in the story to understand it completely. The dialogues are razor sharp and full of adages and maxims. There is an absence of music throughout the film with no background score and this lends an immense dramatic impact to the story.There is no attempt at humor and the film is rather black in showcasing the lives of ordinary men caught in extraordinary circumstances.

No Country for Old Men is a gripping master piece that you must watch.

Rating: 3/5

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Reviews, Western, Crime . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.