Plot
When a Vietnam veteran discovers two million dollars while wandering through the aftermath of a Texas drug deal gone horribly awry, his decision to abscond with the cash sets off a violent chain reaction in a stripped-down crime drama from Joel and Ethan Coen. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) has just stumbled into the find of a lifetime. Upon discovering a bullet-strewn pickup truck surrounded by the corpses of dead bodyguards, Moss uncovers two million dollars in cash and a substantial load of heroin stashed in the back of the vehicle. Later, as an enigmatic killer who determines the fate of his victims with the flip of a coin sets out in pursuit of Moss, the disillusioned Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) struggles to contain the rapidly escalating violence that seems to be consuming his once-peaceful Lone Star State town. Woody Harrelson, Javier Bardem, and Kelly MacDonald co-star in a distinctly American crime story that explores timeless biblical themes in a contemporary Southwestern setting. ~ Jason Buchanan, RoviReview
No Country for Old Men, the darkest, bleakest film yet by Joel and Ethan Coen, manages to be both an unsettling thriller and a statement of great concern for the future. As has always been the case with Joel and Ethan's work, the movie is cast to perfection. Javier Bardem's personification of psychotic evil fills the screen with an unflinching power -- it's as impossible for the audience to look away from him as it is for his victims to get away from him. Josh Brolin plays the Vietnam veteran who kick-starts the plot with a perfect mix of practicality, durability, and quiet desperation. You can believe he's seen enough horrible things during his years in the military that he's willing to go toe-to-toe with someone as malignantly evil as Bardem's remorseless killer. As Brolin's wife, Kelly MacDonald serves up a vivid, tragic character with very little screen time. Tommy Lee Jones centers the film as a Texas sheriff who notes early on that the old-timers never even wore a gun on the job. He longs for a time like that, and although he is a man not prone to emotional displays, his recognition of the horrors he sees registers in unmistakable ways.The Coens build the tension like the masters that they are, often going minutes without any dialogue. What sets this film apart from their others is the refusal to let their comedic impulses temper the material. As always, they get chuckles out of the Texas patois, and there are characters on the fringe who stick in the memory because of their distinct speaking patterns. However none of the levity breaks from the remarkably serious intentions or tone. The one scene Kelly MacDonald shares with Bardem echoes the final confrontation between Frances McDormand and Peter Stormare in Fargo. But where that film offered some hope, some sense that there is an essential rightness in the world worth preserving, No Country is about the world we know coming to an end. Those expecting a pure genre film may be taken aback by the final act, especially since the first 100 minutes rank as an expert thriller. Consisting primarily of extended dialogue scenes, save for one last shocking act of violence, the closing passages of the film underline the themes that Jones' character lays out in the movie's opening voice-over. In Fargo, Margie grieved because she realized not everyone has the simple decency not to kill. No Country for Old Men is an expression of mourning for a world that seems to have lost any semblance of decency or order. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
Cast
- Tommy Lee Jones - Sheriff Ed Tom Bell
- Javier Bardem - Anton Chigurh
- Josh Brolin - Llewelyn Moss
- Woody Harrelson - Carlson Wells
- Kelly MacDonald - Carla Jean Moss
Credit
John Perry Goldsmith - Art Director, David Diliberto - Associate Producer, Ellen Chenoweth - Casting, Jo Edna Boldin - Casting, Mary Zophres - Costume Designer, Betsy Magruder - First Assistant Director, Ethan Coen - Director, Joel Coen - Director, Jery Hewitt - Second Unit Director, Roderick Jaynes - Editor, Mark Roybal - Executive Producer, Robert Graf - Executive Producer, Carter Burwell - Composer (Music Score), Christien Tinsley - Makeup Special Effects, Jess Gonchor - Production Designer, Roger Deakins - Cinematographer, Ethan Coen - Producer, Joel Coen - Producer, Scott Rudin - Producer, Nancy Haigh - Set Designer, Peter Kurland - Sound/Sound Designer, Craig Berkey - Sound/Sound Designer, Jery Hewitt - Stunts Coordinator, Ethan Coen - Screenwriter, Joel Coen - Screenwriter, Paul Elliott - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Craig Berkey - Re-Recording Mixer, Skip Lievsay - Re-Recording Mixer, Greg Orloff - Re-Recording Mixer, Skip Lievsay - Supervising Sound Editor, Cormac McCarthy - Book Author| No Control (1927 Film), No Contest (1994 Film) | |
| No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson (2010 Film), No Crying He Makes (1988 Film) |
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