No Country For Old Men is perhaps the best film of Joel and Ethan Coen, it's certainly the most accomplished. From the terse but brilliant dialogue to the sparse and beautiful landscapes of West Texas, they captured Cormac McCarthy's blood soaked cat and mouse story as perfectly as humanly possible. Faint praise I know.
All the actors are brilliant, none more so than Tommy Lee Jones in a role he was born, then aged to perfection, to play. While the story may be deemed an action/crime drama, it is in the silence of Jones' world weary eyes that we see what the author, and the film makers want us to see. A world unfit for men of a certain age and ethos. A world of murder, drugs and money, bereft of honor and decency. A world where a nearly unstoppable sociopath uses a pneumatic hammer to slaughter his victims.
I must admit, I'm not real familiar with Javier Bardem. In No Country For Old Men he plays a villain no one is likely to ever forget in a riveting performance as he becomes death personified. One might criticize this character for lack of a back story, but that's kind of the point. You could wright a back story the length of Remembrance of Things Past about this guy and never get one bit closer to understanding why he does the things he does.
Bottom line, don't miss it.
2 comments:
I actually just saw it last night and thought it was awesome, but I was a bit dissapointed by the ending.
I heard they changed the ending from the book. Bardem is great check out more of his films from IMDB.
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