Movie Review: No Country for Old Men
The Coen brothers return to cinemas this week with their acclaimed new thriller No Country For Old Men, and if you were starting to wonder if Joel and Ethan had lost it following their last two films, let us assure you that No Country is a huge return to form. The film stars Josh Brolin as a Texan tough guy who runs off with $2m that he finds at the scene of a bungled drug deal – it's a western, a thriller and an art-movie rolled into one, and kicks off 2008 in formidable style.
The Coen brothers return to cinemas this week with their acclaimed new thriller No Country for Old Men. If like me you were starting to wonder if Joel and Ethan had lost it following their last two films – the intermittently funny Intolerable Cruelty and the woeful Ladykillers remake – let me assure you that No Country is a huge return to form.
It stars Josh Brolin as a Texan tough guy who runs off with two million dollars that he finds at the scene of a bungled drug deal. On his trail is grizzled sheriff Tommy Lee Jones, plus a psychotic enforcer played by Golden Globe winner Javier Bardem.
No Country is a tough, gritty film – in fact, you'll need to go back as far as their debut Blood Simple to find a Coen movie quite so tough and gritty. This is a world where men are men, and what men like to do is kill each other.
Bardem's choice of weapon is a cattle gun that blows holes in locked doors and people's heads in equal measure. Even more terrifying is his haircut, making him look an ageing psychotic pageboy.
The tense, bleak atmosphere is heightened by the lack of music, while dialogue is spare and, yes, gritty.
No Country for Old Men is based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, and the Coens remain surprisingly faithful to the original story. Despite the slow build-up of tension as Bardem closes in on his prey, the film abandons all thriller convention for its final 15 minutes. This might frustrate some viewers, but Joel and Ethan have always delighted in confounding audience expectation.
It's a western, a thriller and an art-movie rolled into one, and kicks off 2008 in formidable style.
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Amz27 02 March 2008 03:42am
Really enjoyed watching this film, its a shame that Tommy Lee Jones played such a small part in the film but I thought the character of Anton Sugar was brilliant, you cant help but to think what's going on in this guys mind. You dont know the meaning of psycho until you see this film, clearly one of the best films I've seen in ages.
Chris Beaumont 25 January 2008 09:51pm
Two thirds of a fairly decent thriller does not a great film make.
To me this film shows up the Cohen brothers shortcomings ... their experiments in moving away from their traditional style having fallen flat, they return to what they know best, only to mess that up aswell.
The film completely de-rails itself in the final third, killing characters you're invested in off, and throwing new characters in for apparently no benefit to the narrative. No amount of pointing to the faithfulness to the plot of the book is going to excuse that.
The fact that this is indeed 'No Country For Old Men' was drearily lectured to us by more than one grizzled old timer at the end, in a way so reminiscent of RE lessons at school that I almost nodded off.
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