I just watched No Country for Old Men for the first time and once again I was impressed with a Coen brothers’ film. This crime thriller film reminded me a lot of Fargo, which was also written and directed by the Coen brothers, and convinced me that no one is better at writing crime movies than them. No Country for Old Men was released in 2007 and has won 76 awards, including four Academy Awards and two Golden Globes. It is widely recognized as one of the best films of the 2000s and many regard it as the Coen brothers’ best work.

Set in 1980 West Texas, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) was out hunting in the desert when he stumbled across a drug deal gone bad. He found several men lying on the ground dead and a briefcase that held $2 million. Instead of reporting this to the authorities and turning the money in, he decides to take the money for himself and simply return home. This is where an abundance of trouble ensues for Moss, and pretty much everyone else in the movie.

Psychopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) sets off to recover his money and is hot on the path of Moss and doesn’t mind killing anyone that is in his way. Llewelyn Moss has to flee town and has his wife go stay with her mother to keep away from potential danger. Moving from town to town, and eventually across the border into Mexico, he is perplexed as to how Chigurh seems to know his every move. That is, until he discovers a tracking device that had been planted into the briefcase between a stack of money. He takes it out at a motel, but it is too late: Chigurh has already caught up to him. This leads to several fierce encounters between the two characters. Desperate to just get rid of the money as quickly as possible and clean his hands of the whole situation, Moss tosses the briefcase into a shrouded, grassy area beside the Rio Grande. However, much to his surprise and dismay, his troubles are not over.

I was very impressed from this film’s ability to keep me intrigued the length of its 122 minutes. It gets off to a quick start with action right away and doesn’t let up until the movie ends. The character of Anton Chigurh was played excellently by Javier Bardem and really made the movie for me. Chigurh was such a weird and weird-looking, creepy, smart, and untouchable psychopath. His every move in the movie was so intriguing from determining the fate of people by flipping a coin and having them “call it,” to using his bolt pistol to blow the locks off every door he encounters. Every scene involving him is very suspenseful. Llewelyn Moss’s character was a very good fit for the movie because he was just an average person who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. His character was very relatable, which causes the movie viewer to think this kind of thing could possibly happen to them.

I highly recommend this movie, especially to those who enjoy the crime thriller genre. The Coen brothers just have the knack for writing great movies. This movie won so many awards and is voted as the 157th best movie of all time on IMDb for a reason. If you’re looking for a movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time, check out No Country for Old Men.

Rating: 4.5/5

Garett

Movie Review: No Country for Old Men