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Match Is Perfect, Perfectly Bloody

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By CHRISTY LEMIRE The Associated Press

Published: November 23, 2007

Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers. If you stop to think about it, it's a wonder they've never teamed up before.

The revered writer and the acclaimed moviemakers share so much in common: a love of language, a drive to develop rich characters, an appreciation for the importance of a vivid sense of place and an innate ability to tell stories that take you in directions you'd never have expected from the outset.

"No Country for Old Men" marries the three men's strengths in ways that are deceptively simple and profoundly moving, set against a harshly beautiful, seemingly endless expanse of scrub-brushed West Texas.

It's vintage stuff for the writing-directing brothers, Joel and Ethan, a return to the location of their 1984 debut, "Blood Simple," and the tone of their masterpiece, "Fargo." It's their best work in a while and it's probably going to end up being the year's best movie.

In adapting McCarthy's 2005 novel about crime and carnage along the Rio Grande, the Coens stay mostly faithful to its structure while maintaining much of the author's rhythmically clipped, colorful dialogue.

Set in 1980, "No Country" follows three vastly different men tied together by a big-money drug deal gone wrong - which sounds like a standard-issue genre picture. It's anything but.

Sporting the same shaggy mustache he wore in "American Gangster," Josh Brolin is perfectly cast as Llewelyn Moss, a stoic welder and Vietnam veteran who stumbles upon the botched transaction's bloody aftermath, finds a briefcase stuffed with $2 million and impulsively makes off with it. Brolin presents a sort of rugged everyman trying to get by, blessed with more instincts than brains. He's not a bad guy, just in over his head - besides, wouldn't you grab the money, too?

Meanwhile, Javier Bardem is chilling as Anton Chigurh, the mysterious, murderous psychopath stalking Llewelyn to get the cash back. With his oddly wholesome bowl haircut and the coin he flips to give his potential victims a chance to bet on their lives, Bardem has given us one of the great, inspired turns of movie villainy. You have absolutely no idea where he might go from scene to scene with this quietly methodical yet wildly dangerous character, but you can bet something bad will happen once he gets there.

And Tommy Lee Jones is firmly in his element as the pleasingly named Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who's tracking them both and lamenting the loss of a more honorable way of life in an increasingly senseless world. The lines in his face, the deadpan sarcasm in that seasoned twang of a voice, the no-nonsense look in his eyes - clearly, Jones could have played this part in his sleep. Thankfully for us, he didn't.

The Coens skip seamlessly between all three men, through trailer parks and cheap motels and back and forth across the Mexican border, brilliantly building tension while sprinkling some much needed, very dark humor amid the bloodshed.

MOVIE REVIEW

No Country for Old Men ****

MOVIE BOARD RATING: R (graphic violence and profanity)

STARS: Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones

DIRECTORS: Ethan and Joel Coen

LOCATION: See movie times, Page 8, for local showtimes

PLOT SUMMARY: Three men are tied together by a drug deal gone awry.

RUNNING TIME: 122 minutes

ON THE WEB: nocountryforoldmen.com

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