Right before getting to finally see the Coen’s latest No Country For Old Men; in a packed theater Sunday night; I happened to be reading in New York Times Magazine where they said they didn’t consider NCFOM to be a western…
Well too bad, because it’s about border towns, and bounty hunters, and desperadoes and sheriffs and the main character, Llewellyn (the suddenly great actor Josh Brolin) wears a cowboy hat fer chrissakes. How many western movie cliches are you allowed to cram into your western cowboy movie while claiming it’s not a western? This is just like when the Coens claimed Fargo was based on a true story, they’re always trying to pull one over on us.

The story begins with Llewellyn following a trail of blood into the hills where he finds a bag of money at the other end; amidst a pile of corpses . In the tradition of these types of movies his ill gotten bags of money bring him nothing but trouble. He’s pursued by a homicidal maniac armed with only his can of compressed air and his big scary face. Anton Chigurh (the aforementioned face as played by Javier Bardem), is a peculiar one. He doesn’t seem too good at connecting with people or getting himself understood. There’s more than a few scenes suggesting he’s not all there. Is he crazy? I’m not sure but there’s something about the way he parts his hair that convinced me he’s pure evil. His drive to kill seems compulsive, like he believes the universe will lose all semblance of order unless he kills you.
Bardem as the villain has the showy role but surprisingly I thought Tommy Lee Jones’s was the best performance in the film. Of course Jones is a great actor but he’s been suffering from the Morgan Freeman syndrome as of late. I was ready to dismiss this as another Tommy Lee Jones in the Tommy Lee Jones role but as the film wore on his character really got to me. There’s an (titular) old man resilience working deep in his eyes, you can tell he’s had that same expression on his face for a long time, it’s probably permanent by now. I felt like I could detect the onset of senility just around the corner.
Most folks probably wouldn’t call Tommy Lee Jones the star of this movie; he certainly doesn’t get the most screen time; but it’s not a coincidence that the first and last lines of this picture belong to him (nor is it a coincidence that he plays the Old Man). He’s the unsung hero, the guy who cleans up after the violent escapades. And even though it’s certainly not a comedic role he’s really funny, effortlessly funny even. I believe the MTV awards still have an award for best on screen duo, look no further than Tommy Lee Jones and his deputy, played by Garret Dillahunt.
No Country For Old Men is a refreshing reminder of the stark power and dark humor of the Coens’ earliest work. This film shares a working class 1980’s Texas setting with Blood Simple and while it may not be as ingenious as that film it is at least as suspenseful.
Case in point, consider the awesome and brutal first meeting of Llewellyn and Anton; one of the great moments of cinema this year. There are two details about this scene that need to be addressed. The first is the absence of a musical score which is something that a lot of people have written about. The film’s not completely absent a score there a few moments that are accompanied by a low sustained note (the work of Coens regular composer Carter Burwell). The Coens have had a disposition for long stretches of silence from the very beginning of their career and this scene is the apex of that tradition.
Secondly, there’s a conspicuous absence of people in this scene. Especially when they’re running around outside. There should be people out, there’s tons of cars but no people. Just the dreadful empty silence of night. It’s these details; the type of stuff I was talking about in my review of American Gangster; that elevates this film to the realms of greatness. It’s the type of stuff that will interrupt your dreams.
A few naysayers have complained about the ending for being a little bit on the abrupt side. I guess I can’t argue that it’s abrupt, but in a way that’s genius.
It’s the type of thing that you either just get or you don’t. The thing is it might be abrupt but there’s no loose ends; one way or another everything meets it’s end, just not necessarily in a way that’s convenient for the plot. And after the life line that is the plot dissolves the movie keeps going; left adrift in search of a resolution which it finds with Mr. Tommy Lee Jones’ final line.
Eventually, everyone comes to a bitter end. The end.

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