NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: A REVIEW
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)
As with Dracula, the Coen brothers must have blood. This film is no exception to their gorey rule.
Ethan and Joel Coen have made a series of interesting films that widely exploit regional eccentricities. This is in keeping with their filmwork to date.
The film stars Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and Javier Bardem. Woody Harrelson is also featured. I thought that Josh Brolin stood out in this film. I’ve never seen Javier Bardem before. His look and personality seem to most closely resonate with Abe Vigoda’s in The Godfather mixed with Andy Kaufman.
Storyline: Vietnamese War veteran, now married and living in a trailer in Southwest Texas, while hunting, comes upon a handful of pick-up trucks in a dry wash area and sees no one alive but plenty dead. Warily, he advances. He discovers an attache case filled with loot. He grabs it and a few odds and ends, includiing a handgun, and is about to depart, when he sees a truck that seems to have a living man inside. He checks it out. Sure enough, a badly wounded Latino is slumped at the driverside window (or what’s left of it). The man indicates he wanted water. Brolin’s character, “Llewelyn,” can’t help him and goes off with the case. Later, feeling guilty, he goes back at night to the scene of the carnage to give the Latino a jug of water. Another truck arrives, parking next to Llewelyn’s. Trouble. He is seen and pursued because–because–someone wants their money back. It’s a lot. A camera cut has brought the Javier Bardem character into the picture. He is, shall we say, a little creepy. Lethal too. He is a “psychotic” but clever and relentless, hired killer. Soon, a chase flick begins and it is made interesting by the cat-and-mouse relationship between Bardem and Brolin. Llewelyn’s clever, tough, resourceful and determined to keep the loot. The chase spills into Mexico and back. Woody Harrelson, as a Colonel, trained in special operations, enters the chase. So does Tommy Lee Jones whose character is a sheriff, or other similar lawman. “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go aglay,” twas said. For Llewelyn his mother-in-law proved the fatal messenger to his plans. As for Bardem, he may take a “break” in the action.
The Coens’ strength in imbuing their regional flicks with authentic elements keeps interest alive. There are the usual Coen brothers satiric thrusts. Good soundtrack. Spiced with a bit of cynicism, the struggle for “blood money” takes on a sort of tamale-gothic, picardesque quality.
By means of the Tommy Lee Jones character, the moviegoer gets a sense of alienation that has taken a grip upon the older generation, trying to maintain the old ways without much faith. They struggle with symptoms, not being capable of healing anything for lack of understanding. They use moral and ethical slogans, as if they were staffs. “What’s it all about?” they ask one another, brows furrowing and eyes squinting. “What’s happened?”
Indeed!
Once again, I leave a Coen brothers film feeling that these two men are rather misanthropic, disguised though it be by filmwork noted for regional colorations and satiric humor.
I don’t think I like this film.
All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2007.
