Seemingly neither man nor animal, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is the embodiment of evil in the Coen Brothers’ latest film, “No Country for Old Men.” Based on the novel of the same title by Cormic McCarthy, the film tells the story of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a Texas game hunter who stumbles upon a briefcase containing two million dollars of drug money. Coveting the money for himself, Chigurh, a recently escaped serial killer, hunts Moss without rest, a trail of death in his wake. Over-the-hill local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) also enters the hunt, his only goals to save Moss’s life and prove to himself his own adequacy.
While the trinity of protagonists divvy up their screen time in a relatively even manner, it’s Bardem who makes the most of the limelight. The Spanish actor – best known in the States for his performance in the 2004 Oscar-winning Best Foreign Film, “The Sea Inside” – provides cinema with its most nuanced and terrifying villain since Hannibal Lecter.
With deeply sunken eyes and a low and raspy voice that chills to the bone, Chigurh lives by a maniacal moral code that allows him to decide the life or death of anyone in his path with the flip of a coin. That is, of course, if those haven’t merited worse in his eyes. Brolin also delivers a breakout performance, but it pales in comparison to Bardem’s entrancing portrayal of Chigurh. It’s the stuff that nightmares are made of.
“No Country for Old Men” truly is an existential piece, unlike many art media that have the title superficially tagged on them. The film’s focus on fate and essence (or lack thereof) makes this undeniable.
The screenplay, also a product of the Coens, elevates the film far past the realm of today’s normative action thriller. It provides an enthralling puzzle, smart dialogue and some genuinely fascinating philosophical quandaries while never skipping out on the popcorn entertainment value. Its cocktail of neo-Noir and Western is a genre exercise of endless intrigue, stretching the possibilities of film just that much further.
The only real criticism that one could offer about the film is that it occasionally expects its viewers to piece together plot points that are touched on too briefly. Most serious film lovers don’t mind having to work a little in return for a complete experience, but without proper information, willingness to dig deeper doesn’t suffice. But these moments are few and far between, and during their absence we are treated to one of the few great movies of the year thus far.
More frightening than most horrors, more gripping than most dramas and, when it chooses to be, more funny than most comedies, the film is destined to become a classic.
While not for the faint of heart, “No Country for Old Men” proves to be the Coens’ best product since “Fargo,” a welcome return to form after two relatively disappointing movies in a row, “Intolerable Cruelty” and “The Ladykillers.”
As in all the brothers’ best work, the film executes a delicate balance between violence, humor, empathy and terror. It’s not as funny as we’ve come to expect from them, but it’s just as engrossing, and it contains an ending that will be talked about among movie buffs for a long time to come, not to mention Bardem’s performance, which will be thought of as legendary sooner than you expect.