"No Country for Old Men"

By: Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

The streets of Santa Barbara were littered with casts and crews, fans and flatterers, during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last week, all abuzz over the Coen brother’s latest film, “No Country for Old Men.” The film, which matched “There Will Be Blood” for most Oscar nods (including nominations for best supporting actor, best director and best picture), sent two of its cast, Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem, to Santa Barbara to be honored with special awards. At the Montecito Award ceremony for Javier Bardem, film festival executive director Roger Durling described Bardem’s performance as “the defining performance of the year,” specifically vaulting him over Cate Blanchett (“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”), Julie Christie (“Away From Her”) and Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”).

In “No Country for Old Men,” Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a simple West Texan, comes across a satchel filled with cash from a drug deal gone awry. Instead of turning the money in or avoiding the potential dangers altogether, Moss decides to keep the money, hiding it under his house until he can make accommodations for him and his wife to leave. However, a tracking device planted in the money reveals his location both to Mexican drug dealers and to Anton Chigurh (Javier Barden), a senseless, psychopathic killer on the loose. It soon becomes clear that the biggest hurdle Moss will have to overcome to maintain both the money and his family’s livelihood is Chigurh, as he spends most of the movie fleeing from the stone-faced murderer the audience knows nothing about except that he has a bizarre haircut and that he uses his preferred weapons, a cattle gun and a tank of compressed air, with ruthless dexterity.

As the plot progresses, the conflict becomes more complex due to Chigurh’s principled, albeit random, acts of evil. Chigurh’s pursuit of Moss shows all the hallmarks of greater purpose, yet lacks any definable motivation typically associated with sanity. When Chigurh is offered the money by a cornered Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), a man sent to find and kill him, he turns it down, saying that he prefers “something better,” that is, to have the money placed under his feet by Moss.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) investigates the crimes surrounding the money with a nonplussed demeanor. He is not confused by the nature of the crimes, but by the purpose or reason behind the crimes. Bell is more of a thematic narrator, as his biggest role in the film is as an “old man,” who is set in contrast to a new kind of criminal; a criminal with no soul.

In the beginning of the film, Bell says, “The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job—not to be glorious. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. You can say it's my job to fight it, but I don't know what it is anymore. More than that, I don't want to know. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He would have to say, ‘OK, I'll be part of this world.’”

And thus, this on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller becomes more than just a fast-moving plot line. It becomes a metaphor for evil, violence and greed.

So does “No Country for Old Men” live up to the hype? Of course not. It is good, but not that good. It is deep enough, but just as much about filling the seats with moviegoers eager to see a suspenseful bloodbath as it is about the nature of violence and criminality in the United States and abroad. Bardem’s performance was good enough to earn him the Oscar for best supporting actor, but it was not “the defining performance of the year,” as Roger Durling so fawningly pronounced. If that distinction could be given to anyone, it would be to Daniel Day-Lewis for “There Will Be Blood.”

“No Country for Old Men” was a good movie, and very entertaining. Although many viewers were dissatisfied with the perplexing ending, the conclusion was part of the Coen brother’s art, and without it the film could not have been the artistic success that it was.

“No Country for Old Men” is rated R for strong, graphic violence and some language.