Cinema Update

Review of No Country for Old Men

By Raymond Valinoti, Jr.

Movies that force us to confront troubling issues have always been rare in cinema history. Most filmmakers make movies with the simple goal to entertain you and distract you from your worries. It is quite a shock to see Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men, which explores the violence in our society and refuses to provide a tidy solution.

The film takes place in June 1980 in West Texas, a period when the drug wars along the Mexican border had begun to escalate. This period is relevant because it signifies how bloodshed seems more prevalent in 21^st century America than in any other time in our country’s history. Tommy Lee Jones’s opening voiceover, in a flat, weary drawl, further emphasizes this harsh motif, as he laments that unlike in the past, lawmen now always need guns when pursuing criminals.

As local sheriff Ed Tom Bell, Jones is the film’s moral center, an upstanding officer sickened by the constant brutality he encounters. Nevertheless, he is determined to control, if not eradicate, this horror. Jones’s haunted eyes and drawn tired features reveal that the ugliness has taken its toll. But his eyes also burn with a steely resolve, indicating that he refuses to relinquish his sworn duty to uphold the law.

Bell is after escaped hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Anton has been assigned by criminal interests to recover two million dollars in cash that has been missing since being used in a violent drug deal. A hulking figure with a Beatlesque mop of lank black hair, Bardem is terrifying as he coolly murders people with a pneumatic airgun. He is the consummate sociopath with his emotionless stare, satanic grin and deadpan intonation. Like actual psychopaths, we don’t know what makes him tick, but we sense killing is his raison d’être.

Josh Brolin is Llewelyn Moss, an impoverished Vietnam veteran who stumbles upon and takes the two million dollars. With that much cash, he's convinced that he and his beloved wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) will finally escape their trailer bound existence. Instead, he jeopardizes his own life when the homicidal Anton hunts him down for the loot. Exuding a folksy amiability, Brolin immediately endears himself to us. Although we can’t condone his theft, we sympathize with his plight and fervently hope he doesn’t get hurt. Our empathy for him is enhanced through Macdonald’s touching performance as his devoted wife Carla Jean, particularly when she expresses her concern about him to Bell.

Directors Joel and Ethan Coen give No Country for Old Men an appropriately noirish atmosphere, effectively presenting the bleak emptiness of the Texas borderlands. Particularly disturbing is an early scene where Llewelyn discovers the carnage of victims of the drug massacre before finding the loot. This scene especially demonstrates the Coen brothers’ mastery of the film medium, the power of images to wordlessly provide a message about the consequences of violence. Now playing at Clearview’s Beacon Hill Cinema 5, No Country for Old Men may not be comfortable viewing, but it is a rare and rewarding example of authentic cinematic art.

Raymond Valinoti, Jr. is a resident of Berkeley Heights, NJ. He has a Master’s in Library Science from Rutgers University and is a freelance researcher. His articles on film have been published in the magazines Midnight Marquee and Films of the Golden Age. He can be reached at rvalinoti@thealternativepress.com