No Country For Old Men (Movie)

⭐ 10/10

This movie is perfect. Perfect. And before anyone tells me that I am overstating it, no, watch it. The Coen brothers are (in my opinion) unmatched in their ability to tell a story. Now this movie is based on a book so one could argue that it isn't really them telling the story, but still, they have this ability to make words come to life in a mesmerizing way. The book is unreal, Cormac McCarthy is my favourite author and this book is one of his best, so this movie might have been a slam dunk waiting to happen, but it isn't even just about how good they are at telling the story, they're good at making Cormac McCarthy come to life in this movie. In his books, Cormac feels like an unnamed narrator; one so integrated in the story that he feels like another character, disembodied and vibrant. This movie doesn't have a narrator or anything, but there feels like there is a soul in this movie, a ghost that haunts the dialogue, an essence that fills each character, an inspiration that ties every element of this movie together. That's why the Coen brothers are such geniuses. They didn't just adapt a book to the screen, they brought the soul of the book along too, they brought the mind of an author to the screen.

This movie is a "modern" western. I put quotes around modern because it takes place in 1980, which to some is modern, but to my niece and nephew is ancient which is horrifying and sad. Nevertheless, mixing the 80s with a western tone fits so unbelievably well. Dingy hotel carpets, gas guzzling V8 Buicks, neon signs next to payphones along the dusty roads of Del Rio, Texas. It creates this dead mood that tonally feels very McCarthy. Anton Chigurh is this brooding psychopathic menace that seems to transcend time. He feels like a martian, an extraterrestrial doomsday force that hides in plain sight but never fully blends into the crowd. He's like a sore thumb on a hand saddled in a jacket pocket. You don't really notice him more than you feel him. Llewelyn Moss is your typical southern man, looking to score a way out of his trailer park and into an easy life. Yet when you see him stumble upon that first crime scene, the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, it's almost like you get the gravity of the situation before he does. Llewelyn never really feels like he realizes how serious of a situation he's gotten himself into, we the viewer, can only look on helplessly realizing more and more that this can't end well. And then of course, you have Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, the resident "good guy" who maintains the morals that we would all find comfort in. You get to see him follow these men, one obliviously neutral and one pure evil. As he tracks them you watch his grasp on these comfortably "good" morals slip, little by little. You start to realize that these "good" morals are old. Old thoughts for old men, and this ain't no country for old men.

Analyzing this movie is difficult because there is nothing I dislike, nothing that feels off, nothing that is done wrong. The source material is perfect and this movie executes it perfectly. There is no weirdness, no human error. It's brilliant. Llewelyn Moss is expertly played by Josh Brolin who slam dunks as the "out of his depth yet confident" southern type. He is resourceful, just not resourceful enough. He's cunning, just not cunning enough. He's observant just not observant enough. And Brolin nails this perfectly. Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Ed Tom Bell which honestly, there is no actor who can play this character other than him. His performance in and of itself is good enough to warrant you watching this movie, but then you get to Javier Bardem who plays the psychotic chaos of Anton Chigurh so well, that a panel of American psychologists named his performance in this movie as the single most accurate depiction of malicious psychopathy in film history. I don't think there is a movie that tops this one, at least not for me. I've used this word a lot in this blurb but it is truly, perfect. Please, for me, watch this. I'm begging you.