No Country for Old Men

Rating: 7/10

No Country for Old Men is the latest creation of the Coen Brothers (Fargo, Raising Arizona). In 2008 it was nominated for seven and won four Academy Awards including Best Motion Picture of the Year. With such great credentials I thought “Hey, I’ll give it a try,” but once again, I was disappointed.

The film begins with a voice over by the local sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), describing how the world is changing. He reminisces about how his father was the sheriff before him and about a time when some sheriff’s didn’t even need to carry a side arm. He alludes to how the world is changing and leaving him behind. Focus then shifts to Sheriff Bell transporting Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) to jail.

Meanwhile, Llewelen Moss (Josh Brolin) is hunting (poaching?) in the open desert when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and nearly everyone is dead. He travels a little further and finds another dead man and a briefcase full of $2 million. In the first bad decision of the movie, Llewelen takes the money…all of it and returns to his home.

Cut back to the jail where one of the deputies has radioed out to Sheriff Bell about some of Chigurh’s possessions. When the conversation ends, Chigurh strangles the deputy, breaks free of his handcuffs, and escapes and so begins his search for the drug money.

The majority of the remainder of the movie is a cat and mouse story involving Chigurh and Moss with Moss making bad decision after bad decision. Neither character will go down without a fight. Eventually a bounty hunter named Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) is brought in by a businessman to try to control the situation with Chigurh but I failed to see the point of this and didn’t think it really added anything to the story.

Overall I enjoyed this movie. I thought the film work was impressive and the acting was right on for the characters. Even though the Academy obviously disagreed with me (how dare they!) I thought this film fell short. This movie is supposed to be about how the world is changing and leaving the “old men” such as Sheriff Bell behind but beyond that his role in the story was basically non-existent. Since the local sheriff does basically nothing in this story, of course the world is leaving him behind. Expecting that the world won’t carry on without you is like expecting the bus to be there when you’re an hour late.

In short, this movie is definitely worth renting if you’re in the mood for a decent thriller but I wouldn’t go into it with the expectation that this is without a doubt one of the best movies ever produced.