“It's the American Dream in a goddamn gym bag!”
-- Lou Chambers from A Simple Plan
“I don't know, he ought to. He's seen the same things I've seen, and it's certainly made an impression on me.”
-- Ed Tom Bell from No Country For Old Men
Anton Chigurh is Death. Chigurh is the vicious, unstoppable psychopath at the heart of the Coen Brothers new film, No Country For Old Men. Chigurh is played to wicked perfection by Javier Bardem. He stalks the Texas border looking for a satchel containing two million dollars. Nothing and no one can come between him and the money. Chigurh is a far cry from the character Bardem played in The Sea Inside. Sadly, for his victims, Chigurh is very much mobile. Bardem’s intensity is in high gear right from the start of the film. He manages to escape the clutches of a police arrest. Once he escapes jail, no one is safe. A looming sense of dread has entered the barren and desolate landscapes of Texas in 1980. He uses a lethal nail gun to do away with his victims. Bardem is a one man reign of terror-- a specter of pure violence with a Prince Valiant haircut; coin tosses save some of his potential victims. Chigurh could put the fear of God into such cinematic monsters as Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth, Anthony Hopkins’ Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Michael Rooker’s Henry or even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator.
Joel and Ethan Coen have brought Cormac McCarthy’s novel to vivid and stark life. This is their first literary adaptation and their style compliments Mr. McCarthy’s writing style. I dare say that the Coen Brothers have made their finest film to date. That is saying something because what has come before, for the most part, happens to be some of the most original films in American cinema. No Country For Old Men is also their darkest and most violent film to date. The film certainly belongs in the realm of such Coen Brothers masterpieces as Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink and Fargo. Veteran cinematographer, Roger Deakins, displays a Texas familiar to McCarthy’s novel and a desolation that defined many of Jim Thompson’s great crime novels. Deakins has been a longtime collaborator with the Coen Brothers. His work only adds to each film he has worked on with them. The barren landscapes are drenched in the blood of drug deals gone badly and people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His camera shows barren faces as well as barren landscapes. The brothers also edit the film under the pseudonym, Roderick Jaynes. Their editing, like their writing and directing, represents a technique that has served them well over the years. A Coen Brothers film is a unique piece of work that one would never confuse with any other filmmakers. Longtime music collaborator, Carter Burwell returns to score the film, but in some instances the absence of the music is key to the film. Sound plays an integral part of the story. The sound of Chigurh’s nail gun weapon in use against victims and door locks is its own character. The sound of creaking floors and noises in desolate motels only heighten the stakes.
No Country For Old Men runs at a swift pace. When Texas hunter, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), discovers a small fortune at the scene of drug deal gone violently wrong, the plot is set into motion. He finds a suitcase with two million dollars in it; he also finds a large shipment of heroin. Of course, Moss takes the money and runs. It seems like the answer to all his problems. This small fortune is what Chigurh is determined to retrieve at all costs. Llewelyn’s life takes a dangerous turn for the worst once he takes the money. Sam Raimi visited this terrain with his wonderful adaptation of Scott Smith’s A Simple Plan-- greed never pays. It never works out for anyone. In that film as well as The Treasure Of Sierra Madre, it just rots the core of the soul.
2007 should be remembered as the year of Josh Brolin. Planet Terror, In The Valley Of Elah, American Gangster, and No Country For Old Men represent a major step up for the actor. I believe he is a better actor than his father. We like him as Llewelyn. We are rooting for him the whole time as he stays one step ahead of Chigurh. He decides to go back to the scene of the crime to give one of the dying men water. When he gets there he is attacked by other Mexican drug dealers. He chased and shot at. They cut loose the dogs after him. He manages to survive this harrowing ordeal. He realizes what the stakes are and is prepared to make a better life for him and his wife, Carla (Kelly Macdonald). His boldness is rewarding to the audience. We really want him to make it. We want someone to stand up against Chigurh’s insatiable wrath; we want Llewelyn to defeat death.
There is a philosophical current that runs throughout the film. The wisdom and philosophy of the film is represented by Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Jones is perfect as Bell; he continues a string of world weary and disillusioned characters that reaches its zenith in this film. He displayed the same qualities in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and In The Valley Of Elah. Sheriff Bell thought he had seen it all, but the rampage which follows the drug deal mess in the beginning of the film changes all of that. Through Bell, we understand the meaning of the title. Drugs have changed the landscape of the Texas of his youth. The changing nature of evil haunts Bell. He has never seen anything like Chigurh’s rampage. He is deeply concerned for Llewelyn and Carla. The events have left a vivid impression on Bell’s psyche. His conversations with his deputy, Wendell (Garret Dillahunt), his wife, Loretta (Tess Harper), an El Paso sheriff (Rodger Boyce) and Ellis (Barry Corbin) reveal how much things have changed. What has happened? Have the crimes gotten more violent? Has he outlived his usefulness? Has civility left the arena? It is a combination of things. Tommy Lee Jones plays Bell as a cross between Randolph Scott’ Ben Stride in Seven Men From Now and William Holden’s Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch. He has the honor and nobility that Randolph Scott brought to each western, but there is a Peckinpah feeling of a man who has outlived his times. The film has a deliberate neo-western noir atmosphere going on about the perimeters. There is a desperation within him that reminds me so much of the characters that made up many a Peckinpah film. His mannerisms and methods remind me of Bill Paxton’s Arkansas Police Chief Dale "Hurricane" Dixon in Carl Franklin’s One False Move. It is his conversations with the El Paso sheriff that underscore those feelings. It is not like the old days. Something has changed over the years. Civility left the premises and a new order of violence and retribution has taken over the landscape.
The country has no use for their kind anymore. Men do not get to grow old and retire in these dark times. You will be lucky if you get a chance to draw your gun.
Woody Harrelson has a small part as the bounty hunter, Carson Wells. He is perfect as the person assigned to go after Chigurh. He knows all about Chigurh’s evil. He compares him to the “Bubonic Plague” to the man who hires him. He also knows that Chigurh has no sense of humor although there is a diabolical smirk that comes across his face as he issues the coin tosses. Harrelson has not been this effective since Stephen Frears’ The Hi-Lo Country. I liked him in A Scanner Darkly as well. For his brief part, he is perfect as Carson Wells. There is a sense of hope as he is brought in to deal with Death. When Wells meets Moss in a Mexican hospital, Wells is surprised that Moss survived an initial encounter with Chigurh.
“What is he, like the ultimate bad-ass…”
Moss asks Wells. Of course, Wells knows that is just a euphemism at best. Woody Harrelson was meant to work with the Coen Brothers. He, like Cormac McCarthy, is a perfect fit to their style.
Avarice is the undercurrent in the film. There is no shortage of greed at the movies in 2007. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, Michael Clayton and American Gangster all deal in shades of avarice and its self destructing power. This theme will only get stronger by the end of the year with Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will be Blood. Greed never dies. Just look at what it did to characters in A Simple Plan and The Treasure Of Sierra Madre. The money that Llewelyn is carrying around will bring him nothing but death and misery. His choice sets him on a collision course with one of cinema’s most evil forces. Chigurh’s greed is far worse than Llewelyn’s in this case. Chigurh is destroying everything in his path to recover this fortune. The landscape is forever altered after Chigurh makes his way. These age old themes, a great story, great actors and wonderful direction make No Country For Old Men an instant masterpiece.
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