No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, US, 2007) ★★★★

Well-known by the crime film noir “Blood Simple.” and “Miller’s Crossing,” the Coen brothers are already highly respected filmmakers in the US, even worldwide. Except “Barton Fink” rarely won both Best Picture and Director at Cannes Film Festival, the following “Fargo” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There” also won them three Best Director Awards at Cannes in total. “Fargo” is even considered a film noir classic.

Though they only got selected in competition for Palm d’Or again but didn’t win this time, the excellent reviews keep coming intensively after released. Not only that it swept almost every critic association’s best picture of the year, but it also got nominated for 8 Oscars to become one of the frontier nominees and is the most likely winner. The Coens are even nominated for 4 personal categories each, tied with the legend Orson Welles’s record for the ultimate classic “Citizen Kane.”

The Coens works are usually created originally, but after failed on both critics and box office continuously with “Intolerable Cruelty” and “The Ladykillers,” under the high suggestion by the famous producer Scott Rudin, they decided to adapt this widely acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy after resting for a while. Even Billy Bob Thornton got terrible reviews with “All the Pretty Horses” which was adapted from another McCarthy’s work, the Coens were very confident that they can manage this genre that they love and are good at.

The three main characters in the story, Llewelyn Moss the illegal hunter, Anton Chigure the Killer, and Sheriff Bell, are successfully formed. Of course it’s the credit of McCarthy’s creation, but the Coens added their unique black humor so they could have the total different funny images from those in the original. Josh Brolin gave such a brilliant performance for the first time. Tommy Lee Jones returns to the top after several years of downward after winning with the performances in this film and “In the Valley of Elah.” The interpretation of the Spanish best actor Javier Bardem is incredible, the accent, the motions and the looks are simply perfect, even makes you forget that he’s not an American. Oscar’s Best Supporting Actor this year has already been meant to be his since long ago.

Except the intense and entertaining plot with the Coens’s black humor on the side, this seem simple story actually contains variety of levels. Does the greed of humanity get more and more endless, or the endless greed is originally a human nature. People who are tough become hypocrite of being competitive, and people who are extremely evil could have very solid principles. Though the background was set at the end of the 70’s, it still seems like what happens any moment in modern society.

This story may not provide an ending that everyone is satisfied with, Sheriff Bell devoted himself in danger for the first time ever since he took the job. Unlike the great achievement his grandfather or his father made, he finally chose to drop out. Father is 20 years younger than him in the dream. He lost the money his father gave him, and he couldn’t catch up his father on a horse back. But he’s the only man who is still getting old and has hope for death.