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No
Country for Old Men
*ing: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson
and Kelly McDonald
Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen
Tagline: There are no clean getaways
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The
setting is West Texas and the drawling southern voice that drifts
over the sandy desert as a prologue to the themes that are to follow
belongs to the town's sheriff. Tired, aging and defeated, he is ruminating
over the senselessness and at times, complexity of evil, and his failure
to understand it despite being at the job for a long, long time. Though
we expect a lot of violence to unfold on the screen, this sad, pensive
opening makes us anticipate some thought provoking morality as well,
which is abundant in the characters like the desert-weary eyes of
a cowboy cloaking heavy secrets in his southern hospitality.
We are then taken to the scene of a crime where a couple of dusty
dead bodies are chanced upon by an unassuming man called Llewelyn
Moss (Josh Brolin). Curiosity makes him snoop around the bodies, and
he comes across a truckload of drugs and 2 million dollars---a drug
deal gone bad from the looks of it. Should he get involved and unknowingly,
put his life on the line, or should he just walk away? Having seen
a life of poverty, temptation gets the better of him and he runs with
the money, starting a game of crime and suspense that keeps you engrossed
till the final moments of his eventual undoing. |
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No Country for Old Men is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and adapted
from a novel by Cormac McCarthy. Replete with Hitchcockian suspense
and serial killing clichés, it is a film that does not allow
your eyes to wander off from the screen for even a minute. At some
points, however, you might have to cover your eyes due to the gore,
but even then, the level of tension is so high that you don't want
to miss too much.
Bell, the sheriff, played superbly by Tommy Lee Jones, is reintroduced
once Moss runs away with the money. The morally upright and frustrated
sheriff has seen violence escalating in the town and his reflections,
though quite pitiful, have a certain element of dismal humor to them,
providing a breather from the continuous shootings and murders that
the film is weighed down with. And Llewelyn Moss, though being on
the run with illicit funds, is still a decent Samaritan in the manner
in which he treats others; hence, one finds it hard to judge him.
The quintessential, bone chilling psychopath called Anton Chigurh
(Javier Bardem) is on Moss's tail. With a neat, side parted bob hairstyle
and a stone-face, his appearance lends the most amount of fascination
and intrigue. His character is what all serial killers normally are,
sinister but highly attention-absorbing. The way he goes around shooting
honest folk without a touch of remorse or the slightest worry line
creasing his forehead, the manner in which he delicately pulls back
his boots to keep them from getting spoiled with the victim's blood,
the way his shadow lurks underneath the door, and his cat and mouse
chase with Moss have such high level of attention to detail, that
you find yourself feeling personally involved in the safety of Moss.
The only fact that some viewers may find bewildering is the way the
story unfolds. This is no action-packed commercial flick with an inevitable
confrontation between good and evil in which good eventually triumphs.
Here, evil is more sinister because it has been tackled in a worldly,
realistic manner. It is random, pointless, and thus, all the more
sad. Moss's fate was sealed since the day he took off with the money.
Nothing could save him or his wife. And despite the sighs of relief
one emits at his narrow escapes, there is a sense of frustration at
how easily he is finally cornered. The sheriff, who during one scene
contemplates that he once thought God would eventually come into his
life, retires from the force and realizes that the country is really
not for old men. His feeling of defeat acknowledges the fact that
there are times to come when psychopaths like Chigurh are here to
stay.
No Country for Old Men is violent, suspenseful, highly engrossing
and morally complex. But there is no climax in the film. There are
multiple anti-climaxes that linger on towards the end, making you
crave for at least some form closure or sense of what just happened.
Still, the filmmaking is masterly, the characters rich, the acting
brilliant, and the ending, though unsatisfying, is realistic in these
times of evil triumphing over good much more than vice versa.
-- Maria Tirmizi
*YUCK
**WHATEVER
***GOOD
****SUPER
*****AWESOME |
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