No Country for Old Men

Directed by: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt
Running Time: 2h 02min

The Coen Brothers don't seem to make films for audiences, they make films for themselves. How else can one explain how often they buck the current trend or opt for material that isn't fashionable at the time? Trendsetting, rather than following, No Country for Old Men is deserving of its Best Picture of the Year academy award. Just don't expect Forrest Gump.

Brolin turns in another fine performance, adding to what is a breakthrough year for him (excellent in American Gangster as well--not to take anything away from Harrelson's great year either). He plays an everyman cowboy, who stumbles upon the remains of a shootout, complete with dead bodies and a bag load of cash. What then starts to snowball is a very realistic, complex, and nail biting string of decisions that may or may not pan out for our anti-hero. Brolin is a decent man, not without his faults, who does what any of us would do. When he takes the money and runs, he oddly becomes someone to root for.

Why root for a guy who takes money that doesn't belong to him? Because if you see the guy who's hot on his heels, played by Bardem, a psychotic in every sense of the word, you know that Brolin's decisions can mean life or death. Cue the tense music.

Wait a minute. There isn't any music. Unlike the myriad of teen movies and pathetic romantic comedies, which use modern pop tunes as a substitute for driving the film's pace forward, No Country for Old Men needs only the fine actors and the exquisite scenery to tell its tale. The absence of music establishes an eerie, serene beauty, in contrast to the bloody situations these men find themselves in.

It takes a lot of directorial style and confidence to forego music and keep modern audiences riveted. Not since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has such little music resulted in so much mood. The Coens keep our eyes glued and our hearts beating through the staging of the lens, the intercutting of the actors, and the performances of the leads. Perhaps underappreciated is the support of MacDonald, as Brolin's girlfriend, and Tommy Lee Jones, in a role made for him.

Indeed, it is Jones' small town country sheriff that lends the film a quietness and beauty, as he reflects on all he's seen with barely an iota of urgency, in contrast to the two counterparts lusting after the money. His low key monologues give the film a poignancy and flavour that is characteristic of Coen films. Funny, irreverent, yet completely captivating.

Grade: A-