The Coen Brothers’ latest film takes what could have been a clichéd good-guys-versus-bad-guys shoot ‘em up and gives us not just a tale of white-knuckle suspense, but a meditation on fate, death, and the loss not of innocence but of idealism.
While out hunting in the Texas badlands, local boy Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) comes across the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad: bodies of humans and dogs, abandoned trucks, bags of Mexican heroin, and most crucially, $2 million in cash. He also finds one survivor, a badly wounded man who begs Moss for water. Moss takes the money and leaves the man, only to return later with water when his conscience gets the better of him. But when Moss returns to the scene, others are there as well, and Moss soon finds himself fleeing from remorseless hired killer Anton Chigurh (hypnotically creepy Javier Bardem) who will not be dissuaded from retrieving the money and killing Moss. A step behind both men is aging sheriff Ed Tom Bell (played with dignity and world-weary sorrow by Tommy Lee Jones), who strives to save Moss while being astonished at the cruelty Chigurh is capable of.
A good deal of the story’s resonance comes from the source novel. Pulitzer Prize-winner Cormac McCarthy has often explored the themes of fate and the consequences of men’s choices for good or evil. (It’s no surprise that Moss’s undoing stems not from his theft of the money but from his good impulse to bring water to a dying man.) But credit must also go to the Coens, whose adaptation of the novel is both faithful to the book and works on its own as a film. Moreover, every detail of the film feels right – the trailers and hotel rooms feel lived-in, and you can almost smell the fried potatoes at the diner.
Every character feels real as well – especially those that could have been caricatures. All three of the main characters are complex and the actors do the characters justice. Brolin plays Moss as a fundamentally decent man given an opportunity too good to pass up, yet who’s ultimately betrayed by his own resourcefulness and stubbornness. Bardem is a wonder, playing Chigurh as a man of strange principle who will mete out life or death on the results of a coin toss, and who seems to take both a perverse pleasure in and a businesslike attitude toward his work – he’s more of a force of evil than a person, yet Bardem makes him believable. Jones has the least flashy role but it’s at the heart of the movie – he’s a third-generation lawman who has seen his share of evil and knows that any day could be the one he faces his own death, yet he’s utterly shaken by what he sees during the movie’s events. The supporting cast all shine as well, including Kelly MacDonald as Moss’s wife, and Woody Harrelson as a hired gun who knows Chigurh and is brought in to get to Moss before Chigurh does.
I’ve read many complaints about the ending of No Country For Old Men, but I can’t agree with them. It doesn’t adhere to Hollywood convention, nor does it leave us with a sense of closure. Rather like real life. We’re left, as Jones’ character is, trying to make sense of the world and the evil that men do.
