The first gut reaction you have when watching “No Country for Old Men” is a two-word impression of Javier Bardem: Holy. Crap.
His character, mercenary Anton Chigurh, immediately takes his place among the most fearsome, menacing roles in cinematic history. He’s dubbed “the ultimate badass,” a cross between Keyser Soze and Jason Vorhees, the pivotal fulcrum in a number of scenes that leave your mouth gaping and your heart pounding. The Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, use a number of parallel scenes throughout the movie, perhaps none more powerful than Chigurh’s forcing two separate potential victimes to flip a coin for their lives. They even essentially assign Chigurh his own soundtrack—the sound of his airgun thudding through the silence.
Josh Brolin was an inspired choice as Llewelyn Moss, a risky casting decision that could’ve easily gone bust. However, Brolin fits well as the drifting Texan who suddenly finds himself in way over his head after stumbling across a drug deal gone way wrong and discovering a huge pile of money in the process. His wife, Carla Jean, is played by the always-amazing Kelly McDonald (“The Girl in the Café”,”Trainspotting”), who shrugged off her Scottish roots to effect a terrific Texas accent, showcasing her variety of talents.
Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell was phenomenal, blending folksy humor with a kind of bone-weariness that pervades every wrinkle on his weathered face. Here’s a man closing in quickly on the heels of retirement, a guy who could have done without the amazing turn of events that have bled one final, epic investigation out of him. As his Uncle Ellis tells him at the end, “This country’s hard on people. You can’t stop what’s coming; it ain’t all waiting on you.” In a conversation with Carla Jean, Jones seems to sense the impending doom that is coming the way of Llewelyn and Carla Jean, ending a metaphor about cattle with the line, “Point bein’, even in a contest between man and steer, the issue is not certain.”
The Coen Brothers put on a clinic on how to build tension throughout various scenes, and delve into the issue of the role of morality in desperate men. Llewelyn’s decision to bring water back to the injured Mexican drug runner is one he knows is really dumb, and it eventually costs him his life, a fact that he seems to suspect beforehand. “If I don’t come back, you tell my mother I love her,” he tells Carla Jean, who answers, “Your mother’s dead.” After a pause, Llewelyn finally answers, “Well, then I’ll tell her myself.”
Also, the immense car crash at the end that shatters Chigurh’s left arm puts a couple of young kids directly in harm’s way when they encounter him hurting on the sidewalk, but despite his sense of the walls closing in on him, he still gives them money in exchange for a shirt, and saunters off into the proverbial sunset. The ending is very moving, with a resigned Bell trying to come to terms with his retirement by sitting at a breakfast table, describing a couple of emotional dreams he had about his father to his wife.
There were some seemingly strange casting choices, however. Though he had a number of terrific lines (“I guess I would say he doesn’t have a sense of humor”) Woody Harrelson as gun-for-hire Carson Wells seemed like an unnecessary stretch. Stephen Root, as “Man Who Hires Wells,” is best known for his comedic turns in “Office Space” and “News Radio,” while Deputy Wendell, Garret Dillahunt, is memorable only for weak characters in HBO originals “Deadwood” and “John From Cincinnati.”
The Coen brothers also made some interesting decisions in terms of what was and was not shown within the film. Not only was the ending rather sudden, but the duo elected not to show Llewelyn’s death. There is also a highly confusing scene near the end, when Bell enters the hotel room where Llewelyn was killed, and Chigurh is shown lurking behind the door. Bell sits down on the bed, notices that the grate near the ceiling has been removed and simply walks out of the room. For whatever reason, there is no encounter between Bell and Chigurh, which threw many viewers for a loop. The use of the receiver/transmitter in the found bag of money is also slightly problematic; though it only registers when it is within a certain relatively close distance to the bag, Chigurh somehow still seems to too-easily track Llewelyn with it.
Based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, “No Country for Old Men” won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Yet for all its accolades and nuanced direction, this is purely a Bardem vehicle and one that will be remembered most for his stunning performance. At one point, Carson Wells is asked just how dangerous Chigurh is, to which he answers, matter-of-factly, “Compared to what? The bubonic plague?”
Chigurh not only brings the tension with him, but he seems to live within it, to be a de facto by-product of it. His approach to life sans soul is summed up by his final interaction with Carla Jean, when he tells her to call heads or tails for her life on a coin flip.
“The coin don’t have no say,” she says, trembling. “It’s just you.”
Pause. Cold stare. “Well, I got here the same way the coin did.”
Indeed. And you carried an entire movie with you.
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