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No Country for Old Men (2007) – Movie Review

April 13th, 2008 — Movies, TV, Celebrities
Tags: Drama, Ethan Coen, Javier Bardem, Joel Coen, Josh Brolin, Movie review, No Country for Old Men, Thriller, Tommy Lee Jones

No Country for Old Men is an academy-winning movie written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem. The film has 8 Oscar nominations and won 4 — Best Director (Joel and Ethan Coen), Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Josh Brolin in "No Country for Old Men"

The movie shows scenes of desolated, wide-opened country in West Texas in June 1980. In a voiceover, the local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) tells of the changing times as the region becomes increasingly violent. The antagonist, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is arrested on the road as he possesses some kind of strange weapon. In the police station, Chigurh strangles a sheriff’s deputy with his handcuffs to escape custody. He uses his unique weapon, a captive bolt pistol to steal a car by killing the driver.

Meanwhile, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) comes across a collection of corpses and one dying Mexican during his hunting of pronghorn near the Rio Grande river. He also a stash of heroin and two million dollars in a satchel a short distance from the massacre.

Initially taking the money and leaving the Mexican to die, at night, Moss returns with his conscience with water for the dying man. Detected by returning Mexican gangsters, this good deed sets off a cat-and-mouse game in which the hunter and hunted frequently switch roles, as the gang of Mexicans, Moss, Chigurh and Bell chase each other and the money across the Texas and Mexico landscapes.

Chigurh is a professional hitman who has been hired to retrieve the satchel of money. The Mexicans track Moss to a motel room where Moss has hidden the satchel inside an air vent. They wait inside the room to ambush him. Moss, however, sees them and rents an adjacent room to retrieve the satchel through the common vent. Using the receiver, Chigurh tracks the money to Moss’s room, bursts in, and slaughters the Mexicans. Searching for the satchel, Chigurh removes the vent cover with a dime and realizes Moss has escaped with the money. Using the receiver again, Chigurh tracks Moss to a border town hotel, his pursuit climaxing in a firefight that spills onto the streets. Narrowly escaping death by crossing the border, Moss wakes up, is transported to a Mexican hospital, and meets Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), another operative hired by the drug buyer (Stephen Root). After Moss rejects Wells’s offer to save his life, Wells returns to his hotel where he is captured and killed by Chigurh, just as Moss calls Wells. Picking up the phone, Chigurh offers to spare Moss’s wife Carla Jean (though he would still kill Moss) if Moss forfeits the money, an offer that Moss angrily rejects. The drug buyer who hire Wells, the Mexicans and Chigurh is later killed by Chigurh as well.

Moss arranges a meeting with Carla in El Paso to give her the money and send her out of harm’s way. The characters all converge on a seedy hotel in El Paso, but not simultaneously: Sheriff Bell and Carla Jean do not arrive until after Moss has been killed by the Mexicans in a shootout.

Chigurh manages to escape after killing Moss’ wife, Carla.

Overall, this is one of the best films in 2007. After winning the best picture in Oscar, it is no doubt that you must not miss this movie. Javier Bardem shows us why he deserves the best supporting actor at the Oscar.

My ratings: 9 out of 10.

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