No Country for Old Men: Blood in the Sand
There are no clean getaways.
When I read Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”, it took a while before I was hooked, but once that happened I was taken aback by the writer’s way of describing the desolate, bleak future. In this film, which is based on one of Mr. McCarthy’s books, cinematographer Roger Deakins captures the stark beauty of a wild and vast land about to change. It is indeed the cinematic equivalence of Mr. McCarthy’s prose. Thrilling and well acted, many viewers were nevertheless disappointed in the ingredients that define No Country for Old Men as a McCarthy story.
The year is 1980 and the place is Texas. An unemployed Vietnam War veteran, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), comes across a grisly scene in the middle of the desert. Several people lie there dead after a shootout; there’s also a big stack of heroin and cash. Moss takes the money and leaves but makes the mistake of coming back to the scene in the middle of the night. He runs into a group of drug-runners and narrowly escapes death, but the bad guys are now able to identify him thanks to his car. Thankfully, Moss is a bright and resourceful man who quickly hides away his girlfriend and goes on the lam, meticulously preparing for the eventuality that someone could track him down. They do. A psychopathic hired gun named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who has a habit of using a captive bolt pistol to kill people as well as open locks is on Moss’ trail; the war veteran doesn’t realize that a transmitter is hidden inside the bag of money he found in the desert. Meanwhile, sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is beginning to figure out what is going on and tries to convince Moss’ girlfriend to tell him where he’s hiding. The sheriff hates to see what is happening to Texas lately, but he knows there will be more blood.
The movie is part thriller, part meditation on a specific era that Mr. McCarthy has chosen as critical. Chigurh’s hunt for Moss is eerie in the way that he seems unstoppable; this killer has no mercy whatsoever. Moss is no easy victim either; he knows how to defend himself and avoid the enemy. Their battle is bloody, violent and compelling. The Coen brothers have never made a movie this tense, but they sure have a knack for it. A convincing performance by Mr. Brolin, and Mr. Bardem is unforgettable; sporting a very strange hairdo and eyes that stare straight through you, his performance is akin to that of Anthony Hopkins’ in The Silence of the Lambs. Woody Harrelson has a brief but amusing supporting part and Mr. Jones is excellent as the sheriff; professional, earnest and weary, he becomes the symbol of the film’s hotly debated other half. The first scene has him contemplating how things have changed since he was a kid and the last scene has him telling his wife about a dream he had last night. It’s an abrupt ending, and many hated it, but I believe too many viewers were too enthralled by the encounter between Chigurh and Moss to appreciate the underlying themes. This is in fact a rather conservative film about a time and place that were changing fast in 1980. Many of those changes were indeed negative, but open-minded viewers will also find reason to disagree with the film’s old-timers who complain freely about everything new. These ingredients are what lend weight to an otherwise merely entertaining thriller.
In some ways, this Coen enterprise is similar to their Fargo (1996), not least in the depiction of the police. Some fans will object to its mournful tone, but this will stand as one of the brothers’ most impressive features.
No Country for Old Men 2007-U.S. 120 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Scott Rudin. Written and directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. Novel: Cormac McCarthy. Cinematography: Roger Deakins. Editing: Roderick Jaynes. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones (Ed Tom Bell), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss), Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt.
► Ethan Coen: “The setting is actually part of the reason that we wanted to do this film. We’d done our first movie (Blood Simple) in Texas, although that was in Austin, but we’d also traveled through West Texas, and were attracted to it even before we read the book. The setting is so integral to the book, to the story — it’s about where it takes place as much as anything else. It is a very beautiful landscape, but in a bleak rather than picturesque way. It’s not an easy place to live in, and that’s important to what the story is about — the human confrontation with this harsh environment.” (Interview on EmanuelLevy.com)
Trivia: Editor “Roderick Jaynes” is actually the Coen brothers. Heath Ledger was allegedly considered for the part of Llewelyn.
Oscars: Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Bardem), Adapted Screenplay. BAFTA: Best Director, Supporting Actor (Bardem), Cinematography. Golden Globes: Best Supporting Actor (Bardem), Screenplay.
film movies joel coen tommy lee jones josh brolin javier bardem woody harrelson IMDb
Comments
Due to spam, I am forced to moderate comments, which is why it may take a few hours until your comment is displayed.