 Tagline: There Are No Clean Getaways Acclaimed filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen deliver their most gripping and ambitious film yet in this sizzling and supercharged action-thriller, now more sizzling than ever on Blu-ray Disc. When a man stumbles on a bloody crime scene, a pickup truck loaded with heroin, and two million dollars in irresistible cash, his decision to take the money sets off an unstoppable chain reaction of violence. Not even West Texas law can contain it. Featuring an acclaimed cast led by Tommy Lee Jones, this stunning game of cat and mouse is even grittier in flawless 1080p. Each heart-stopping frame delivers maximum punch as 24-bit uncompressed audio and the unbridled strength of Blu-ray High Definition take you to the edge of your seat and beyond. Storyline: In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com) Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Greg Maltz on February 24, 2008 -- A satchel packed with two million dollars in cash. A pressurized canister used to punch holes in deadbolts and skulls. A West Texas stage of flatlands, small towns and old-fashioned, honest folk. These props, places and people, molded by the skillful hands of filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, float on the surface of a deeper melodrama that has played out since the beginning of time: the battle of good versus evil and the role of fate in shaping the fight. Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men is unconventional and brilliant, earning four Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and best screenplay adaptation. And the BD-50 may deliver the best video definition you will ever see.Set in the 1970s, the story focuses on three main characters, sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), Lewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) and Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who embody law, the average man and lawlessness, respectively. Moss hangs suspended somewhere between light and darkness. A twist of fate thrusts him into a fight against evil, even though he never consciously chose to participate in it. But fighting the surging force of evil is Bell's lifelong call of duty, and that of his father and his father's father--three generations of Texan sheriffs. For Bell, this call of duty is a haunting, elusive exercise. He can reconcile the threat of evil on a physical level and intellectual level, but not a spiritual level. As the sheriff says in the narration that opens the film. "You can say it's my job to fight it but I don't know what it is anymore. More than that, I don't want to know. A man would have to put his soul at hazard." This notion of testing one's soul against evil is frequently explored on film; but rarely as dramatically and disarmingly as in No Country for Old Men. The test is portrayed as glibly as the flip of a coin; temporally as a cat-and-mouse shootout; and as spiritually as Bell's pursuit of the other characters, the way he is haunted by the darkness of humanity and his acceptance that he can never shine a light on it. After sheriff Bell's voiceover, the story gets rolling with Chigurh's brutal escape from a policeman. Flagging down a motorist and asking him to "hold still please", Chigurh murders the man at point blank range. This scene is immediately juxtaposed with Moss taking aim at a far away antelope through a rifle scope, muttering under his breath for the deer to "hold still". Moss squeezes the trigger, but the shot misses the head and neck and the antelope limps away. As Moss tracks it, he comes upon a wounded pitbull, a curious sight in the middle of the badlands. Moss quickly finds the dog's point of origin--a cluster of bullet-riddled pickup trucks, dead bodies and a colossal cargo of heroin. The area bristles with supreme danger. One of the Mexican men, though mortally wounded, is still alive in his truck. He begs Moss to give him water, but Moss has none. Still using his tracking skills, Moss soon finds the money from the drug-deal-gone-bad. He grabs the satchel of cash and two firearms from the crime scene, and returns to his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald). The couple is in bed when Moss' conscience gets the best of him. He had left a dying man begging for water and now he can't sleep. In the hours before dawn, he fills a container with water and heads off to grant the man's final wish. Back at the crime scene, Moss finds the man shot in the head. Looking up at the ridge where he parked his truck, Moss notices another truck parked adjacent to it. Note that all the action described thus far happens in the first few minutes of the film. The harrowing chase that follows and subsequent shoot-outs ar executed with a tremendous eye for detail by the Coen brothers. Chigurh and Mexican outlaws track Moss, and Bell brings up the rear, trying to make sense of the trail of bodies. The sheriff quickly recognizes the danger to both Moss. He appeals to Carla Jean to convince Moss that he needs help. But Bell is getting old. Will he be able to stop Chigurh, or will the mysterious, unblockable force of evil roll on, snuffing out the most innocent life in the story? What makes No Country for Old Men so unconventional? Several factors, but the main reason is no final showdown in the classic sense. This lack of conventional resolution led to undue criticism from those who did not understand the story. Part of the film's appeal and genius lies in the way it dispenses with tying up the loose ends of conflict/resolution as deftly as it sets them up. The juxtaposition of Moss and Chigurh is fascinating. We watch them operate with comparable efficiency, both sustain injuries, both treat themselves. Both are motivated by the money. Both are skillful with firearms. We learn that Moss has served two tours in Vietnam. Chigurh's past is never revealed but, unlike Moss, he lacks any hint of remorse or conscience and he believes only in fate. Characters as strong as these are not new to the Coen brothers. But in the Coens' earlier films like Fargo, the most brutal violence was often followed by quirky levity than can be described as comic relief. Even the most horrific acts, for example when a man is ground into tiny pieces, are minimized by farcical dialogue: "I guess that was your accomplice in the woodchipper." The sardonic humor, quirky facial expressions and odd, lilting accents are all legitimate devices that make Coen brothers films endearing and special to audiences. But those moments of levity are nowhere to be found in No Country. One can argue it is the first film from the Coens in which they despensed with the comic relief and made a movie that doesn't flinch from its own narrative flow or bend under its own weight. In no way does this minimize the importance and success of the Coen's earlier body of work. As in Shakespeare's plays, comic relief makes the tragedy easier to take. And let's face it: part of the Coen brothers' gift is their sense of humor and timing. But to successfully tackle a story like No Country, they needed to dispense with humor for the most part, and I'm glad they did. Had they made this film in the 1990s, dialogue like that during the coin flip scene in the convenience store would have been peppered with humor. Instead, the Coens made sure the drama escalated with no hint of levity. The Coens simply execute. That is a great achievement for No Country because its real message is not tragic. It is merely an observation: evil can never be defeated, but when you're no longer gung-ho to face it and fight it, it's time to step aside. Ending: At the end of the Coen Brothers' blood-soaked, neo-Western, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) waxes philosophic by relating to his wife two dreams he has about his father. In the first dream, he loses some money his father gave him. In the second dream, Bell sees his father holding a torch, riding ahead into the darkness of a snowy mountain pass. It almost stops the movie dead, except for two things. --- One, shortly before Bell tells the stories of the dreams, he tells his wife that his father died young, and in a sense, his father will always be a younger man. Two, throughout the movie, Bell ponders the violence in the area where he is sheriff and, since he is rather close to retirement, wonders whether or not he has become too old for the world in which he lives. The title of the movie is No Country For Old Men, and Bell is one of those old men. It has become too violent too quickly for someone of his age, and he can no longer cope. The world needs someone younger, like his father, to light the way in the ever-growing darkness around it—exactly like the second dream Bell describes. Cast Notes: Tommy Lee Jones (Ed Tom Bell), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells), Kelly Macdonald (Carla Jean Moss), Garret Dillahunt (Wendell), Tess Harper (Loretta Bell), Barry Corbin (Ellis), Stephen Root (Man who hires Wells), Rodger Boyce (El Paso Sheriff), Beth Grant (Carla Jean's Mother), Ana Reeder (Poolside Woman), Kit Gwin (Sheriff Bell's Secretary), Zach Hopkins (Strangled Deputy), Chip Love (Man in Ford). IMDb Rating (07/25/14): 8.2/10 from 452,529 users Top 250: #166 IMDb Rating (05/11/10): 8.3/10 from 188,515 users Top 250: #113
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
