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No Country for Old Men (2007)

Time Out rating

Average user rating

118 reviews

Synopsis

Joel and Ethan Coen are back with a bloody adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s terse literary thriller about a Texan Vietnam vet who stumbles into the aftermath of a gangland drug operation. Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem star.

Movie review

From Time Out London

West Texas, 1980. Out hunting deer in the desert down by the Mexican border, Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) happens on a heap of carnage: torn-apart trucks, corpses of men and dogs, the bloody bodies of others who’d be better off dead, and a case packed with cash: about $2 million. With no witnesses, and confident he can handle himself, Moss opts to keep what’s clearly payment in a drugs-handover gone wrong, and treat himself and wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) to a life considerably better than their trailer-park existence. Trouble is, psychopathic hitman Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) also wants the loot, and begins carefully hunting the hunter, in turn pursued by veteran sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who can’t help feeling the world’s turning more crazily violent.

The Coens’ first outright adaptation is of a Cormac McCarthy novel so attuned to them that the film feels – at least until the final few scenes – as if it’s based on one of their own original screenplays: ‘Blood Simple’ meets ‘Fargo’, almost. For all its fidelity to its source, however, it’d be wrong to think it merely an illustration. The Coens meticulously select the most filmic moments of McCarthy’s terse, gripping book; they trim the sheriff’s nostalgic reveries and philosophising, embellish and enhance the action, and succeed overall in transforming the novel’s economic descriptions into a full-blown world populated by vivid, plausible characters.

Most impressive, they find a cinematic equivalent to McCarthy’s language: his narrative ellipses, play with point of view, and structural concerns such as the exploration of the similarities and differences between Moss, Chigurh and Bell. Certain virtuoso sequences feel near-abstract in their focus on objects, sounds, light, colour or camera angle rather than on human presence. As in ‘Barton Fink’ or ‘Fargo’, the Coens prove that properly innovative artistry and engrossing entertainment can co-exist to utterly compelling effect.Notwithstanding much marvellous deadpan humour, this is one of their darkest efforts: Chigurh, especially, is a nightmarish creation, polite manners and pageboy bob perversely accentuating the volatility in his strangely logical head. Roger Deakins’ superb camerawork, top-grade performances all round, and understated, assured direction ensure the film exerts a grip from start to end. A masterly tale of the good, the deranged and the doomed that inflects the raw violence of the west with a wry acknowledgement of the demise of codes of honour, this is frighteningly intelligent and imaginative.

Author: Geoff Andrew

Time Out London Issue 1952 - January 14th 2008

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User reviews of this film

gill said...

Posted on Nov 06 2011 21:00 one of the most overrated films I've ever seen.

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Gail said...

Posted on Mar 22 2010 13:35 slow boring weird

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kjpt140v said...

Posted on Nov 25 2009 22:31 I think Geoff Andrew needs to see the Emperor's new clothes for what they are, nothing. The reviewer wants approval from the establishment. This film, I promise you, is overrated

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becky said...

Posted on Oct 16 2009 10:31 i really cannot think why this film gets me right to the edge of my seat. i loved it :)

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Purdy Purewal said...

Posted on Apr 13 2009 22:33 So sooooo dissapointed with this movie... couldnt catch it at the cinema so ordered via Love Film and i havent seen such a poor movie in a looong time! SO slow, boring, and it did not go anywhere! Tommy lee Jones was hardly in the movie despite the movie being based on him?! What a puzzle of an end!

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jim said...

Posted on Jan 05 2009 02:41 rubbish and boring. very pretentious.

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trev said...

Posted on Dec 14 2008 15:08 rubbish

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trev said...

Posted on Dec 14 2008 15:08 rubbish

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mahedy said...

Posted on Dec 14 2008 15:06 hated it.....boring and no substance in my opinion!!!

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George Marshall said...

Posted on Nov 23 2008 23:23 Although highly artful in its styling and photography, I found it impossible to watch this film without asking endless questions about 'why' the characters were doing what they were, and why it was possible for them to keep doing it- and in this case what the point of the whole thing was anyway.
However beautifully acted (this is) any film requires an internal coherence and when a film attempts a kind of realism in its settings and acting style it only makes a greater demand on the plausability of the script. I'm afraid this only confirms my previous conclusions that the Coens are superficial and lacking in the core values that makes real artists.

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Thomas Noctor said...

Posted on Oct 07 2008 19:08 This movie is a hugh rip off of 'Night of the running man'. This over hyped piece of non sense has the worst ending I have ever seen in a movie. Extremely boring its the third oscar nominee in a row Ive seen thats rubbish. I love thrillers and action movies. Everyone in cinema came out asking what the Coen Brothers were on when they made this boring move, Even though the opening scenes were promising nothing happens after that. Boring.

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GerardThomas said...

Posted on Jun 29 2008 00:05 I have loved all the Coen brothers films up until this one which was frankly a disappointment.
It seemed just ridiculous vilolence without the personal involvement of their earlier films.

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Lelo Rom said...

Posted on Jun 22 2008 09:05 This film was absurd in every sense: The fake plot, the stereotyped characters, the picture-postcard locales. Who are the Coen boys, the producers, the distributors trying to hoodwink with this over-rated nonsense?Hint: The American public? Hmm...Yeah, I guess so.Javier Bardem was, frankly, comical with what tension there was in the film pivoting around his invincinbility, his appearance with gas canister supposedly evoking terror in the minds of the most stalwart. Guys: Give us a break! This is American vulgarity at its' worst.

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Magmabulle said...

Posted on Jun 07 2008 23:25 The best Coen movie ever made in my opinion, which says a lot. It is suspense and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Jun 06 2008 22:39 thank you richard or dick whatever -your prose is unmatched so you can give others lessons for free ,no i do not know what dramatic licence and nit-picking mean -please give your definitions as you seem to be the prose stylist worthy of ibsen and oscar wilde rolled into one ,but let us decide first what your function is on this forum-giving a critique of movies or nit picking on others -i do hope your majesty will agree nit picking on a personal level is distasteful ,but then i would have thought a fecund imagination like yours will know those public etiquettes .
nice to make your worship's acquaintance

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