This is my first movie review for benkoo.com and before I jump into it, I thought I would give some background on my overall tastes. I am very selective and am skeptical of most movie going opportunities that come my way (my 2 roommates want me to see Beowolf at an Imax theater in the East bay). In college I soaked up a lot of good new movies and caught up on a lot of the classics but haven’t had the time to see a lot of good flicks this year.
With all that being said the Coen Brothers are two of my favorite movie makers and I was enthralled with the preview and subsequent reviews for No Country for Old Men. In particular I was excited to see Tommy Lee Jones in this movie as this seemed to be an extension of his performance in The Three Burial of Melquiades Estrada, a movie that I really enjoyed.
So I ventured to my local theater on opening night, opting to forgo the unpleasantness of bars the night before Thanksgiving. For 90 minutes the movie was everything I expected and much much more. Great acting, great direction, gripping suspense, and memorable action sequences that will be forever etched into my memory. Up until I read more about the movie I thought it was Kurt Russel playing the protagonist, Llewelyn Moss, but as it turns out it was Josh Brolin who put in stellar performance. Picture and spoilers below
No Country for Old Men doesn’t dilly dally as the movie opens with Anton Chigurgh, one of the most scary and evil bad guys I have ever seen killing a deputy and subsequently using his car to pull over a driver in order to steal his car (yeah he kills him too). Llewelyn Moss then stumbles upon the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad. Dead bodies everywhere, with a truck- full of drugs still waiting to be claimed. Several miles away Moss finds one final dead body and more importantly a case of $2 million. Moss takes the money back to his trailer where he and his wife engage in some classic banter.
In the middle of the night Moss decides to go back to the scene as there was one man who had survived the massive shootout and was in need of water. Moss finds the man dead, shot by a second barrage of attackers. In the distance Moss sees a group find his truck and begins to chase after him. In an exciting but somewhat unbelievable scene, Moss is able to escape without catching sight of his attackers. Moss knows that with his truck at the scene, its only a matter of time until he is hunted down.
Later we come to find that Moss’s would be assassins was not Chigurgh but rather “The Mexicans”. Through out the movie Chigurgh and “The Mexicans” in addition to Carson Wells, played by Woody Harrelson, track a shrewd and determined Moss who is smart enough to send his wife away from what would ensue. Unfortunately for Moss the money has a tracking system in the case, one that can pick up a signal from short distances. Moss, Chigurgh, Wells, and the Mexicans do battle in a variety of border towns. The middle portion of this movie is absolutely fantastic as the resourceful Moss is barely able to survive wave after wave of attacks.
This great movie will draw mixed reactions as the ending seemingly falls short of all the build up in the first 3/4 a movie. No Country for Old Men racks up gun fights, dead bodies, comical dialogue, and epic chase scene during the first 90 minutes but slows to a crawl as Moss’s final demise is not shown but is only inferred. We do not know how or who finally ended Moss’s heroic attempt to defy the odds.
Moss’s death slows down the movie although it seems one last confrontation between Tommy Lee Jones’ character (sheriff) and Chigurgh will unfold. Surprisingly it does not happen and there is much debate on why and how the two sidestep what seemingly would be an epic showdown. Keep in mind this movie follows the book, so all criticism on that front should not be targeted at the Coen brothers.
The final 10 minute stretch of No Country also raises some eye brows as Chigurgh confronts Moss’s wife and presumable kills her although that is up for debate as well. In the aftermath of this confrontation Chigurh is injured in a random car accident one that seems to veer away from the direction of the entire film. Tommy Lee Jones closes the movie with a somewhat lackluster monologue citing his rationale for retiring as sheriff. The screen suddenly goes black thus ending one of the better films of 2007, but one that could culminated with an A+finish to go along with the rest of the movie.
The ending is what you make of it. Although most of us would have liked to seen the continuance of action, violence, and suspense spill over into the final 4th of the movie, this movie stayed true to the novel and focused on the subplot of a sheriff wanting to keep peace while avoiding danger. I think this movie will grow on me and others as its really a unique story, executed terrificly by the Coen Brothers. However still many of us wonder what could have been, if the ending closed out the film with the level of intensity, excitement, and suspense that captivated the audience through out.
