Heads You Live, Tails You Die

To call No Country for Old Men Joel and Ethan Coen’s best, most mature film isn’t to cast aspersions on the likes of Miller’s Crossing, The Big Lebowski or The Man Who Wasn’t There—all of which combine the dramatic, the comic and the dryly philosophical in ways that are undeniably accomplished. But there’s something different about No Country for Old Men. Coming on the heels of the muddled Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers—both better than their reputations, though still not exactly on point—the Coens instill their latest with renewed confidence and purpose, bringing every bit of their style and signifiers to bear. They’re back in a familiar world of seedy motels and barren landscapes, filmed by slow dollies approaching from unusual angles. And though No Country for Old Men is every bit as nerve-racking and funny as the brothers’ long-ago debut sensation Blood Simple, the new film adds an essential gravity.

Much of the weightiness comes from Cormac McCarthy’s source novel, which provides the Coens with dialogue as flavorful as their own best work, as well as a plot that moves relentlessly but unpredictably forward. No Country for Old Men often withholds key characters and events—to the extent that it’s hard to describe the movie in a “so-and-so does such-and-such” way. But here’s a rough breakdown: Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss, a Texas hunter who stumbles upon the bloody aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong in the desert and finds $2 million sitting among the corpses. He grabs the loot and makes a dash, trailed by Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a walking, talking Act of God who wields an air-powered bolt-gun and an unnerving sense of resolve. Circling the perimeter of Moss and Chigurh’s deadly game of tag, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (played by Tommy Lee Jones) gathers evidence, questions witnesses, and tries to find some way not to get directly involved with this mess.

Bell’s “raison d’être”—to quote Raising Arizona—has perplexed some viewers, who’ve tried to shunt him off to the side of the story, calling him a mere “Greek chorus” commenting on the action. Personally, I think Bell is the action. He’s the old man this country has left behind, and his efforts to avoid confronting the evils of this world bring the movie to its unusual conclusion. He’s Jesus, begging God to pass the cup to someone else. And God ain’t having it.

In No Country for Old Men, Jones delivers his first real performance in years—and yes, that includes In the Valley of Elah, for which Jones does the umpteenth variation on his driven, fast-talking know-it-all. In this movie Jones slows down, savoring the meat and the meaning of lines such as, “Even in the contest between man and steer, the issue is not certain.” And he’s matched by Bardem, a grinning jack-in-the-box who springs out every time the Coens turn the crank just enough, and by Brolin, who says nothing for minutes on end and then mutters something inexplicable, as though he’d been having a conversation in his head the whole time.

All these actors—including the just-stopping-by-for-a-scene-or-two Woody Harrelson and Kelly Macdonald—are well-supported by the Coens, who pack the film with long dialogue-free sequences that build tension with a well-timed cut or dramatic tracking shot, making the cast an essential part of the mise-en-scene. Nothing about No Country for Old Men is the least bit saggy or superfluous. The movie is a finely tuned anxiety-delivery device, letting the audience feel what it’s like to be chased through the night by a roaring monster truck, or faced with a coin flip to determine if they live or die.

If you’re looking for the difference between No Country for Old Men and the Coens’ earlier films, that may be it: The stakes are higher, and the tension is palpable. It’s hard to avoid comparing this movie to another Coens masterpiece, Fargo, but while that film had ample style and meaning—and even a beating heart—it still held its characters and story at a certain remove. No Country for Old Men dismisses that remove as “vanity.” The Coens have always had more to say with their movies than they get credit for—even if it’s only in the way they rip up genres and eras to reveal what’s really behind them. But this time they dig deeper into the messiness of crime and moral chaos than they ever have before. If they don’t or can’t answer the perplexing question at the heart of McCarthy’s novel, they at least devote themselves to exploring what it means: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule?”