Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

I knew this one would be different, special even. There's something to like in every Coen Brothers movie. Put two rabid fans together in the same room, and they will fight to the death over what film is the Coens' finest work. A lot of people choose FARGO or MILLER'S CROSSING or O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU?, but I will never forget that feeling of discovery and blood lust I acquired watching Blood Simple for the first time (and every time since). But from the first time I laid eyes on the trailer for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy), I knew this one would be different. I'm not sure if it was the towering figure of Javier Bardem in his Dutch boy haircut, or Josh Brolin covered in dust and carrying a bag of money, or Tommy Lee Jones being Tommy Lee Jones, but I got a vibe that the ferocity of this film would penetrate my soul. In so many ways, I wasn't quite prepared for what I got.

This is a film in which the hero (for lack of a better word) Brolin and the villain Bardem are two sides of the same sharp sword. The only thing that separates them is their need to kill, not their ability. Brolin's career-defining performance (in a year when Brolin's work in such films as AMERICAN GANGSTER, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH and the GRINDHOUSE offering PLANET TERROR has been spectacular) as Llewelyn Moss is also changed by the presence of a good woman, as is often the case. Kelly Macdonald plays Carla Jean, a simple woman who knows a little bit more about what her husband is capable of than she ever lets on. When we first meet Llewelyn, he's hunting and stumbles upon the aftermath of a massacre that appears to be a drug deal gone horribly wrong. The Coens relish in doing this to us a couple times in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN; they drop us in to a blood-soaked scenario after the blood has mostly dried and the bugs and heat have turned the crime scene into an even uglier landscape. When Llewelyn finds a man still alive at the site, we discover just how cold-hearted this man can be. The sequence sets the tone for many to follow; it is essentially dialog free as he finds a substantial sum of cash next to the body of a dead man under a tree.

Jones's Sheriff Bell is more of an outside observer and pursuer. At various times, he's not even sure who he's after. Sometimes he's chasing Llewelyn, and other times he's after a stone-cold killer named Anton Chigurh (Bardem), who is hired to find the missing money and drugs. Jones and his co-star Garret Dillahunt ("Deadwood"; THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES) provide the film with rare moments of humor (and dialog) as they deduce the limited clues left behind by both Moss and Chigurh. We've seen Jones play a man chasing another man before; he won an Oscar for playing such a man, as a matter of fact. What's fascinating about his character and the film in general is that the three leads don't really share any screen time together, despite the fact the one is chasing the other, who is chasing the other. Yet none of the drama is undercut. There are even shoot outs between characters, but you can never see more than one at a time; it makes the suspense unbearable.

But years from now, the character people will talk about is Chigurh, who might be one of the most cold-hearted, evil men ever to occupy the screen. He makes a coin toss terrifying, even when the person calling heads or tails has no idea what the stakes are. His weapon of choice makes air an instrument of death. Top that! He pursues Llewelyn like a famished wolf, and when the two men get near each other, all hell breaks loose. The first time we see him kill somebody (he chokes a cop with his handcuffs), the Coens don't focus on the officer's last moments. Instead, the camera zooms in from above on Chigurh's face as the blood from the dying man's throat widens beneath them. The look on his face is ecstatic and horrific at the same time.

The Coens have chosen to make a film that has a cold heart. Good feelings don't have a place in this work or in most of these characters. As if to prove that point, when Chigurh realizes he probably won't ever catch Llewelyn, he forces Llewelyn's hand by threatening the man's wife, one of the few warm people in this movie. When Woody Harrelson shows up late in the film as another assassin, his character has almost too much personality and charm to exist in this universe. As a result, his fate seems almost certain.

Many audiences are going to squawk loud about a sudden time shift toward the end of the film. Remember what I said earlier about certain acts of violence not shown on the screen? There's an instance of this near the end of the film that many will find unforgivable, and if you do, you're missing the point of the story entirely. We don't need to see this particular moment to understand its impact on the bigger picture. More importantly, what does your call for showing this bloodletting say about you? The Coens throw the moment back in your face, and say, Why do you need to see this? The handling of this material (from what I understand, the book handles it exactly the same way) might be the single bravest sequence I've seen in a movie all year, and it may divide reactions to this film for a long time to come.

I saw NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN about three weeks ago, and it haunts me as often as it has forced me to rethink (although never change) my feelings and reactions to it. I only have about a month to go before I can start putting together my list of my favorite films of the year, and I fully expect this one up near the top. This is a troubling and astonishing work that almost requires that you view it repeatedly. I know I plan to, if only to watch Bardem's presence on screen cast a dark and fearful cloud over an audience.

Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com

Greetings AICN, MiraJeff here with a look at the Coen brothers’ latest cinematic endeavor, No Country for Old Men. There’s been a lot of ink spilled on this film. It arrives in twenty-something theaters this weekend riding a tidal wave of hype. Most of it is extremely deserved, but cries of ‘masterpiece’ or ‘best-ever Coen brothers film’ only do the film a disservice. Because the last ten minutes of the film will give even the most tolerant viewers reservations. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

Set in 1980, No Country for Old Men stars Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss. We don’t know much about him other than he’s got a lovely wife ( the fantastic, Oscar nom-worthy Kelly Macdonald) he shares a modest home with. One day, as fate would have it, Llewelyn stumbles upon the aftermath of a botched drug deal while out shooting deer. Bodies are strewn about the desert sand, there’s a truck with a bed full of drugs, and not far away lies a suitcase full of money and a dead man nearby. This is the golden opportunity Llewelyn has waited for fate to bestow on him. So he does what anybody left alone in the middle of nowhere with a ton of money would do; He takes it. This proves to be an ill-fated decision.

You see, the money (and the drugs) belong to someone, and that someone employs Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Chigurh is a coin-flipping, cold-blooded killer with a very dry, sardonic sense of humor, though there’s nothing funny about his existence. Chigurh has principles that transcend money or drugs. He’s been hired to do a job and it’s business, not personal, even though that’s what he seems to make it. Now the following sentence is not hyperbole whatsoever. With Chigurh, Bardem has created an instant icon of evil. Chigurh is one of the baddest men to haunt the history of cinema, and Bardem’s creepy, magnetic performance recalls the masterwork of Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Bardem’s work here really is that incredible. Chigurh is on a mission of death, and Bardem’s epic depiction of this unstoppable bogeyman is never anything less than riveting. His eyes are like two vacant black holes in the middle of his ridiculously pasty face, like a ghost seeing through a pair of UFO’s. Honestly, he made me afraid to look away, as if he’d put that cattle gun to my head if I dared to look away. If it sounds like Llewelyn’s odds of survival are insurmountable, that’s because they are. But that doesn’t mean the fight is one-sided.

As played by Brolin, Llewelyn Moss is a feisty but overmatched underdog. There’s a lot of fight left in this dog though, and the strength of his performance creates a satisfying balance of good and evil, without which the film wouldn’t be nearly as successful. Brolin makes us root for Llewelyn. We want to see him get away and live happily ever after with his wife. Our attachment to Llewelyn is a testament to the strength of Brolin’s performance here. Brolin is an actor who has spent the better part of his career working under the radar, but after his solid supporting work in Grindhouse, In the Valley of Elah and American Gangster, it’s clear he is enjoying a career renaissance of sorts. He’s having a breakout year and Llewelyn provides him the role of a lifetime. Thankfully, Brolin steps up to the plate and gives his finest performance. He’s so good in the lead that I’m willing to bet that even the Coen brothers were surprised and impressed by his performance. Expect to see a lot more of him as soon as this unfortunate writer’s strike ends.

So with Bardem and Brolin turning in career-best performances, what’s the problem? Enter the third piece of the puzzle, Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Bell, who many view as the film’s protagonist. Sheriff Bell comes from a long line of lawmen. He became Sheriff at the age of 25 and can’t help but compared himself to the old timers who came before him. He’s teamed with a smart but goofy deputy played by Garrett Dillahunt, and together they stay hot on Chigurh’s trail as he hunts down Llewelyn. Sheriff Bell is the beating heart at the center of the film. His contemplative voiceover takes us into the story, same as it takes us out.

The film is thisclose to perfect, but it overreaches in its philosophical final reel, when the Coen brothers choose to remain too faithful to Cormac McCarthy’s source material and impart some metaphoric words of wisdom that don’t necessarily make for a satisfying conclusion. The problem is the deliberate structure of the film, and how it spends its running time building to a climactic confrontation that we’re never given. A character that we spend nearly 2 hours pulling for is killed off-screen, by fringe characters that we’re basically given the impression are irrelevant to the rest of the story. It makes for an incredibly frustrating cinematic experience, waiting for something that never comes. I’ve read a few reviews that compare the abrupt ending to the end of The Sopranos, only in that case, David Chase’s decision to cut to black was brilliant, whereas here, the anticlimax feels a bit like a cheat. And perhaps that’s where the brilliance of No Country for Old Men lies, in how it toys with the conventions of the genre and plays off its audience’s expectations, but personally, I thought the end fell a little flat and squandered the good will built up by the preceding two hours. I was expecting an epic confrontation of good and evil, but sadly, fate intervenes before we the Coens can get around to it. They make some very deliberate choices and I can’t say I agree with all of them but I admire them for having the sheer balls to attempt them.

You have to give the Coens credit for never ceding to the formula of the genre. They’re always pushing the boundaries of storytelling, and while I found Fargo and Blood Simple to be superior films, there’s no question that No Country for Old Men marks a significant return to form for the Coens, and stands as a major accomplishment for them as filmmakers. Their collaboration with cinematographer Roger Deakins is nothing short of majestic, and even more so than Brolin’s streak, it truly blows my mind that Deakins is behind this, In the Valley of Elah and the film he most deserves to be recognized for, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford. The sweeping vistas he captures here are simply gorgeous. Another important contribution, or rather lack thereof, is Carter Burwell’s score. His name is listed in the production notes but I swear I can’t remember a single note of music. It was one of the first things that came to mind when the lights came up and I loved that creative choice. It’s also worth noting, since I missed the chance to review it last week, that Burwell’s score in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is his finest work since Fargo. I really hope he gets a nomination for his work in Lumet’s film.

What else did I love about the film? How about the scuff marks left on the floor by a cop who thrashes around violently as he’s being strangled by Chigurh. Or the thrilling dog chase that marks the second time in a week Brolin has appeared onscreen shooting a dog. And Bardem’s individual scenes with Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, and a superb scene between Chigurh and an elderly shopkeeper that is underlined by an atmosphere of intense dread, though the shopkeeper winds up being one of the few people who are allowed to keep their lives after crossing Chigurh’s path. I loved the incredible shootout at the hotel, and the overwhelming suspense when the desk clerk fails to answer the phone. And it physically pained me to watch Chigurh tend to a particularly nasty wound that’s so jaw-dropping it silences a mariachi band. It was also a delight watching Brolin and Harrelson’s back and forth in the hospital. I appreciated how the Coens got all the details right, like the squirt bottles of maple syrup in the restaurant scenes between Jones and Macdonald, who’s Scottish accent pokes through at times, though for the most part she’s successfully manipulates her voice into a convincing Texas twang. She also looks just like Kate Winslet might if she were from the Southwest.

In the end, No Country for Old Men is a sublime if disjointed meditation on fate. It’s about how you can’t stop what’s coming. Time moves on. People and their dreams die. The end finds a newly-retired Sheriff Bell contemplating a dream of his now that he has time to indulge and explore his subconscious. He’s outlived his father by 20 years but even in his dreams, he sees himself as a young man. The dream speaks his sense of purpose, and how that vain sense of purpose drives us all, and once it’s lost, it can never be found. It’s an interesting way to close the film but it feels forced and out of place with the rest of the film. Whose story are the Coens most concerned with telling? Which character do they feel the strongest allegiance to? Who are they trying to do justice by? Again, I don’t need movies to give me all the answers in a nice, neat package, but the end of No Country for Old Men leaves us with only more questions, and while it provides for a fascinating post-screening discussion with whoever you see the film with, it’s likely to leave a bad taste in your mouth. You have to chew on it and you can’t spit it right back out if you don’t like the taste at first. You have to savor it and let yourself digest it. But I’ve given this one more than enough time to marinate in my mind and there’s something about the end that just rubs me the wrong way. No Country for Old Men remains one of the year’s best films, but I predict it will also be the film to create the most heated debate. Its themes are universal (good, evil, fear of getting old and purposeless) but it’s certainly not for everyone. That said, it’s an absolute must-see. And while I see Bardem as a lock in the Supporting Actor category and the Coens as probable nominees for either writer or directing or perhaps both, I still don’t see this one as the Best Picture contender that most critics have it pegged as.

Real quick… I meant to review Lions for Lambs today but I have been swamped at the day job with Oscar season revving up. The long and short of it is that it’s a good movie and a bold first release for the new-and-improved United Artists, and while it featured solid performances from just about everyone and I could easily relate to Andrew Garfield’s apathetic college student, I still found the film’s message a little preachy. It’s not a particularly entertaining film, and it doesn’t say anything especially original, but it does engage its audience and I was surprised by how invested I became in its characters. I also think it has one of the best last-lines of the year, so keep your ears out for that.

That’ll do it for me, folks. I’ll be back next week with a very special, one-on-one exclusive interview with Southland Tales writer/director Richard Kelly, as well as the most epic review of that film that you’re likely to read on the Internet. ‘Til next time, this is MiraJeff signing off…