Film Review: No Country For Old Men

Liverpool Daily Post

No Country For Old Men (Cert. 15, 122 mins)
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Tess Harper, Barry Corbin, Stephen Root
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

JOEL and Ethan Coen orchestrate an unbearably tense game of cat-and-mouse against the barren Texan borderlands in this frequently bloody thriller, based on the book by Cormac McCarthy.

Surpassing the near-perfect 1996 caper Fargo, this is a breathtaking demonstration of concise storytelling and film-making brio, coupled with powerful performances and the blackest humour.

It is unquestionably one of the best films of this or any year.

In it, no-one is immune from that most cruel and unforgiving mistress, fate. Most of the protagonists end up on a mortuary slab; their deaths anything but painless at the hands of Javier Bardem’s psychopath.

A wife or girlfriend, who stumbles unwittingly into the fray, is potential collateral damage, paying the price for their significant other’s countless sins.

"You bring the money and I’ll let her go, else she’s accountable," the assassin tells one spouse without a flicker of compassion.

The sucker in question is trailer park loser Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who thinks he has hit the jackpot when he stumbles on the aftermath of a drugs deal, and a suitcase containing $2.4m.

Unfortunately, Llewelyn is caught stealing the cash by the dealers and they despatch hit man Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) to kill the thief and reclaim their loot. As the killer edges closer to his prey, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) gives chase, following Anton’s trail of destruction, shadowed by bounty hunter Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson).

No Country For Old Men holds us in a vicelike grip as these men slowly gravitate towards one another, destined to collide in a hail of bullets, and the Coens crank up the tension until we’re holding our breath.

Our only respite is a bravura set-piece like a late-night shoot-out that spills onto the streets, or the retrieval of the stolen money from its hiding place in a motel room.

Bardem chills to the bone with a genuinely discomfiting portrayal of an unstoppable angel of death, with scintillating turns from Brolin and Jones, the latter tingeing his role with humour as dry as the Texan desert.