This movie scrapes the bottom of the barrel on the expanding list of Best Pictures. No Patience for Stupid People is a more apt title. Not one character makes a smart move in the story. Nobody shows intelligence or offers insight. No one is wise. No one learns anything or evolves. The film is plodding, dull, and pointless, shedding light on exactly nothing. I’ve seen it three times now, and with each new viewing, I think less of it. At least the first time through, some tension was felt, particularly in scenes with Oscar-winner Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh. He is lauded as an iconic screen villain today, but he relies more on his unsettling appearance than anything else. A rugged face with large, dulled eyes and a pageboy hairdo. It’s both comical and freakish at the same time. The story is set in 1980, so a Love Boat look is oddly appropriate for a psychotic hitman with no sense of reality. Bardem plays his role with a calm, icy detachment that belies his horrifying actions. It’s quite effective at first and “wowed” the Academy enough to snag a Best Supporting Actor trophy for him. But with subsequent viewings, I’m mostly left with a bad haircut and a cool, calculated demeanor. Both are bold choices that paid off once but offer little else if you try to dig deeper.
The Coen brothers have fashioned No Country for Old Men as a neo-Western crime-thriller. It struggles to emulate Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s but fails miserably en route. The plot meanders all over the place until it falls flat on its face at the end. That’s (not) entertainment. Tommy Lee Jones attempts to inject world-weary dime-store philosophies into perhaps the dumbest sheriff I’ve ever seen in a dramatic film. He has less crime-scene savvy than a toddler looking for a toy. He is constantly one step behind the serial killer and “investigates” by putting his fingerprints and hands all over every shred of evidence. He never calls for backup or flips on a light. His deductions are feeble and insufficient. No additional police or FBI agents are alerted to help catch this escaped assassin on the loose. It’s all as ridiculous as can be.
Then you have Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who has the most screen time. He is a dimwitted protagonist who starts out in the wrong place at the wrong time, finds two million dollars in cash, and proceeds to make every bad decision imaginable for the remainder of the story. I don’t feel sympathy for any of them, not even Moss’s wife (Kelly Macdonald). It’s like watching a mildly tense nightmare unfold in slow-motion. No one is logical. They commit countless crimes in public places with nobody around to stop them. No witnesses, no sirens in the distance to signal that anyone within earshot has a clue what’s going on even when the bullets fly, the windows shatter, and automobiles collide. No realism to be found in any scene in the movie.
At the end, we get this nonsensical speech, where Sheriff Bell tells his wife (Tess Harper) about two dreams he had regarding his father. He’s already visited his uncle (Barry Corbin) at this point and confessed that he’s ready to retire, that it’s all become “too big” for him. His dream-therapy moment in the final shot amounts to a confusing analogy about him struggling to find his way back or not screw up. Cut to black, and roll the credits without music. Deep, man, deep.
No Country for Old Men represents one in a series of lousy films that captured the top prize from the Academy in the latter half of the first decade of this new millennium. It’s like all the voters fell asleep at the wheel. I have never been more out of step with their choices than during this “dry spell” of roughly five years. Thankfully, they found their way out of it with better selections in years to come, but this is one of the misfires.
No Country for Old Men
Director | Joel Coen and Ethan Coen |
Primary Cast | Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Tess Harper, Barry Corbin, Beth Grant |
Familiar Faces | Beth Grant from Rain Man |
Firsts | First Spanish actor to win an Oscar for acting (Javier Bardem) |
Total Wins | 4 (Picture, Director, Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, Screenplay: Adapted) |
Total Nominations | 8 (Picture, Director, Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, Screenplay: Adapted, Cinematography, Editing, Sound: Mixing, Sound: Editing) |
Viewing Format | Blu-ray Disc |