No Country for Old Men
On new years day I went to see the Cohen brothers new offering No Country for Old Men which set one helluva standard for movies in 2008. Absolutely brilliant. And I would not be surprised if it was the best film that I saw in 2008. (No real spoilers follow.)
The basic plot is a cowboy out hunting - Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin) - stumbles across a whole pile of bodies in the desert from a drug deal gone wrong and a sachet full of money. He returns home with the money and tells his wife - Carla Jean Moss (played by Kelly Macdonald) to leave the trailer and to go to stay with her mother. Llewelyn then returns to the scene of the showdown with several litres of water - perhaps for the remaining parched and dying Mexican but I was never sure.
Meanwhile we are introduced to the killer dispatched to retrive the money Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem). Anton Chigurh is perhaps the scariest villain to hit the screen in quite a while. Anton is not sane, but he is not insane in the way that a frothing lunatic reassures an audience that his 'craziness' is his weakness. Anton is cold, intelligent, and with a particular underlying set of principles. The Cohen brothers let us know Anton is a killer from his first moments on screen - when he strangles a sheriff, takes his car, pulls over a random motorist, then asks him to 'Step outside the car' then 'I need you to stand still' and kills him with a pressurized boltgun blast to the temple as used in abattoirs. It is clear nothing is going to stand in the way of him and his quarry.
Llewelyn is chased away from the scene of the deal gone wrong by some Mexicans returned to recoup the money and drugs. Anton Chigurh shows up with another two men in suits - who he promptly kills after getting the vehicle tag from Llewelyn's now abandoned pickup truck. Anton then sets off to hunt down Llewelyn. Lastly we are introduced to Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who attempts to track down Anton and Llewelyn. One of my favourite pieces of dialogue in the film is when Deputy Wendell and Sheriff Bell come across the bodies in the desert.
Wendell: You know, there might not have been no money.
Ed Tom Bell: That's possible.
Wendell: But you don't believe it.
Ed Tom Bell: No. Probably I don't.
Wendell: It's a mess, ain't it, sheriff?
Ed Tom Bell: If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here.
Humorous dialogue contained throughout the film takes the edge off might otherwise be a bleak and violent film. The film follows Anton hunting down Llewelyn who are in turn being hunted by the sheriffs. This film kept me on the edge of my seat, yet No Country for Old Men is much more than just a thriller. The Cohen brothers touch on questions of when we face our own mortality and I left the cinema asking 'When do we all have to face our own deaths?' And what might that look like? In the case of Sheriff Ed Bell it is his father riding out into the darkness and preparing a camp with a warm fire that he will one day ride towards.
5 stars. 3 stars if you dislike violence depicted in film (and this would be my only warning to potential viewers).
The basic plot is a cowboy out hunting - Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin) - stumbles across a whole pile of bodies in the desert from a drug deal gone wrong and a sachet full of money. He returns home with the money and tells his wife - Carla Jean Moss (played by Kelly Macdonald) to leave the trailer and to go to stay with her mother. Llewelyn then returns to the scene of the showdown with several litres of water - perhaps for the remaining parched and dying Mexican but I was never sure.
Meanwhile we are introduced to the killer dispatched to retrive the money Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem). Anton Chigurh is perhaps the scariest villain to hit the screen in quite a while. Anton is not sane, but he is not insane in the way that a frothing lunatic reassures an audience that his 'craziness' is his weakness. Anton is cold, intelligent, and with a particular underlying set of principles. The Cohen brothers let us know Anton is a killer from his first moments on screen - when he strangles a sheriff, takes his car, pulls over a random motorist, then asks him to 'Step outside the car' then 'I need you to stand still' and kills him with a pressurized boltgun blast to the temple as used in abattoirs. It is clear nothing is going to stand in the way of him and his quarry.
Llewelyn is chased away from the scene of the deal gone wrong by some Mexicans returned to recoup the money and drugs. Anton Chigurh shows up with another two men in suits - who he promptly kills after getting the vehicle tag from Llewelyn's now abandoned pickup truck. Anton then sets off to hunt down Llewelyn. Lastly we are introduced to Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones) who attempts to track down Anton and Llewelyn. One of my favourite pieces of dialogue in the film is when Deputy Wendell and Sheriff Bell come across the bodies in the desert.
Wendell: You know, there might not have been no money.
Ed Tom Bell: That's possible.
Wendell: But you don't believe it.
Ed Tom Bell: No. Probably I don't.
Wendell: It's a mess, ain't it, sheriff?
Ed Tom Bell: If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here.
Humorous dialogue contained throughout the film takes the edge off might otherwise be a bleak and violent film. The film follows Anton hunting down Llewelyn who are in turn being hunted by the sheriffs. This film kept me on the edge of my seat, yet No Country for Old Men is much more than just a thriller. The Cohen brothers touch on questions of when we face our own mortality and I left the cinema asking 'When do we all have to face our own deaths?' And what might that look like? In the case of Sheriff Ed Bell it is his father riding out into the darkness and preparing a camp with a warm fire that he will one day ride towards.
5 stars. 3 stars if you dislike violence depicted in film (and this would be my only warning to potential viewers).
0 comments:
Post a Comment