Pick of the Week: No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men follows Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) as they pursue and elude each other through the cities and back roads of Texas. The madness begins when Moss finds the aftermath of a drug deal gone bad and he decides to take an unattended satchel full of cash. Moss soon realizes his mistake when Chigurh, a hitman hired to find the missing satchel, comes after him in pursuit of the cash. Amazing cinematic action ensues as none of them are willing to give up or walk away.

My Commentary: A lot of people who I talk to get this movie mixed up with There Will Be Blood because they were both up for Oscars last year and both sounded like dark movies. To be honest, both movies are dark, but There Will Be Blood is much darker. The characters in No Country for Old Men provide much more of a balance. The three main characters reflect three types of people. There are people who are good (Sheriff Bell), people who are evil (Chigurh) and people who fall into a vague middle ground (Moss). I love this movie because the characters are very real and organic. Even the seemingly indestructable hitman, Chigurh, has to take a few hours out of the chase when he gets shot in the leg with a shotgun.

One of my favorite things about this movie is that even though Moss stumbled on this situation by accident, he is by no means the usual bumbling good guy who just barely gets out of whatever scrape he has gotten himself into. The guy knows how to defend himself and he is definately one smart cookie. Chigurh, however, is just absolutely terrifying. Sheriff Bell and Llewelyn Moss are needed to balance him out and keep the movie from being too over the top.

Go see this movie if for no other reason than because the Coen Brothers made it. That should be reason enough, really.

Rating: ******** (8 out of 10)