Review: No Country for Old Men

(This is a review by Negativespace, a friend that will be doing movie reviews for us regularly. I know this movie came out a couple weeks ago, but the posting delay is my fault, and future reviews will be much more timely. I figured some people would be interested in talking about this movie anyway. Thanks. SR)

Most of what you've read about the Coen Brothers' latest is true: return to form, perfectly orchestrated, masterfully executed, beautifully photographed, tremendously violent and bleak as all-get-out. But what you haven't heard is that ultimately, all these things end up working against it.

Cormac McCarthy, arguably the best living American (fiction) writer today, wrote the 2005 novel from which the Coens unsparingly adapted this perfectly calibrated crime drama where specifics are immaterial: anonymous drug money, anonymous dead Mexicans and anonymous dead dogs all set the scene for a picture-perfect anonymous drug deal gone awry, leaving a briefcase with 2 million bucks to fall into the unfortunate lap of Nam vet turned hunter Llewellyn Moss (a surprising Josh Brolin), planting him forever in the oversized shadow of bounty hunter Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem.), who has been hired by some pseudo-anonymous businessmen to reclaim the missing money. Although Chigurh (pronounced su-gar) is a "bounty hunter," it is clear from the movie's first few moments that he isn't merely some nasty enforcer assigned to recover the drug money-- rather, he represents some amalgamation of dark forces with a greater purpose that seems to add up to little more than pure evil. Operating without license from any earthly outfit, he haunts the Texas landscape with his "cattle gun," dispatching souls and offering his unique brand of life-coaching to anyone who has the misfortune to land in his path en route to poor outmatched and outgunned Llewellyn.

The Coens, given their tendencies, likely gravitated toward Cormac McCarthy's novel for no other reason than the possibilities that arise from putting Javier Bardem in a page-boy 'do and watching him spill almost unthinkable volumes of blood. And although this is more than enough gimmick to sustain a two-hour movie, the Coens overreach.

The ultimate thrust of the story is pure McCarthy territory--unmitigated evil outmatching its meek prey (among them, a pillar of Texas grace, Tommy Lee Jones). But unfortunately, this is not Coen Brothers territory. They tangle their trademark quirky genre fuck-yous with McCarthy's pessimistic fatalism in an equation that just doesn't seem to add up. The impeccable architecture of the story and its execution were more than enough to elevate No Country from a mere crime-genre entry into an artistic achievement perhaps unmatched in the Coen canon. But then, in the waning moments of the film, the preceding magic is reframed in an even bleaker, ultimately hopeless hue, transforming the suspension of disbelief a viewer has labored to sustain throughout the film into a philosophical construct. The resulting dissonance is the Coens' real gift to you: the awkward space between their own cynicism and McCarthy's pessimism.

I understand perfectly that McCarthy's novel served as their narrative template, but it's in articulation where a story finds it's levity, and the Coens (tripping over Billy Bob's withered corpse) just don't speak McCarthy's language. There's a degree of the Coens' trademark hokey camp to the film's more nefarious elements that is troublingly recast in the concrete of real-life when we are forced to buy into its triumph. So deviously constructed is their own genre exercise, so nervy and breathless, that it renders the existential chord they strike in the final act bloated and woefully unconvincing, negating all that came before--much to my personal aggravation. Subversion of narrative convention is cool and all, especially in the service of ponderous old-man philosophical sermonizing, but its drawn in such bold strokes here that it feels kind of insulting.

Of course, this is the point. The Coens have made a cottage industry of condescending to their characters, their settings, and their audiences. It's just that usually it doesn't sting so badly. The film is devilishly entertaining and expertly made, but its nagging insistence of being taken seriously shines a big, bright light on its failings. Its possible that the Coens intend this movie as some sort of rebuke to critics who say they laugh irresponsibly at their own violence, but I doubt it. It's very likely that all these themes are explored much more satisfactorily in McCarthy's book too, presently available at most airports and all Malls and the Southwest Branch of the Mesquite Library.

Afterthought: Anyone with evil Chigurh's Promethean prowess could likely just as easily knock over an armored car or commit serial credit fraud without leaving a trail of collateral damage 16 corpses long. But then, what would he do with the Cattle Gun? Verdict: There is no real gravity in learning that Tommy Lee Jones is no match for the Bogeyman. Worth Your Time. Not Your Money.