No Country for Old Men is set in the Texas of the 1980s - a world that still believes in its cowboy past that is startled by the rise of drugs trafficking across its border. Whilst persuading us that this will be the story of Josh Brolin’s hunter who discovers a drugs deal gone wrong and a suitcase full of cash, this film is equally about the realisation of Tommy Lee Jones’ local sheriff that the world has changed and he no longer has a place in it.
These are powerful and lasting themes that stayed with me after the credits rolled, but more immediate is the strength of Javier Bardem’s performance as assassin Anton Chigurh. Cold, dry and terrifying, Bardem is the definition of screen presence here. Just the sight of him sat in a chair can chill, but it is in his relentless movement and relentless pursuit that he comes to life. He seems unstoppable.
Chigurh is searching for the suitcase and leaves a trail of bodies in his wake as he tries to track it down, each killed with an unpleasant, compressed air weapon that churned my stomach. The film alludes to this character’s psychology but never tries to explain it to us - a move that makes him the more chilling. From his first, almost sexual, killing experience wrestling with a police officer to the flipping of a coin, it is as if there is a beast inside of Chigurh that drives and compells him.
Searching for both Chigurh and Brolin’s hunter is Sheriff Bell, played elegiacly by Tommy Lee Jones. He is one of the old men in the title, nearing retirement and struggling to comprehend a world where killing takes place seemingly without motive and concerned about the impending tide of violence. He asks himself in a stunning opening monologue how would the famous lawmen of yesteryear have coped with such a world, the obvious conclusion being that they couldn’t. The world has changed and left characters like Sheriff Bell behind.
The chase takes all three across Texas and, at one point, two of them into Mexico. Chigurh and Llewellyn Moss bloody each other repeatedly in scrappy encounters that are dripped in tension. The Coen Brothers’ allow light and sound to star in these scenes, with Moss noticing tiny changes in the atmosphere as he prepares for the onslaught of violence.
We not only see the violence, we see the aftermath too. Both have scenes where they have to patch themselves up before the cycle of violence kicks off again. You sense that this cycle of violence could go on again and again without resolution - Moss and Chigurh are too perfectly matched. It is the unexpected interference of a third party (other than Bell) that proves decisive.
Brief mention must be made of Kelly Macdonald, perfect as Moss’ nineteen year old wife, Woody Harrelson as a cocky bounty hunter and Stephen Root as the man who hires him. Although each only has a small amount of screen time, they are so well cast that you know who they are almost immediately. Macdonald is particularly fine towards the end of the movie as she wrestles with the question of what would be best for her husband.
No Country for Old Men is a great achievement in film-making. Tense and unrelenting, it only missteps towards the end where it never shows us the confrontation we are expecting, keeping a key incident off-screen.
Watching this film, I could not help but be impressed by Javier Bardem’s chilling performance. Yet I was left in the hours that followed turning to Tommy Lee Jones’ quieter performance. This is the heart of the film, the struggle of that older man to understand purpose where there is none and to predict the actions of the unpredictable.
No Country for Old Men is an unsettling, brilliance piece of filmmaking that affects as much as it thrills. Its ending prevents it from being immediately satisfying but in many ways that only speaks to the notion that it is the unpredictable that gets us in the end. Not the ending we want, but one that fits perfectly with the themes of Tommy Lee Jones’ speech at the opening of the movie.