As a critic, I am forced between two options in discussing No Country for Old Men. I can either discuss it as what it wants to be about, which is a kind of statement about the end of an American generation, or what it actually is, a picture about a bad-ass assassin killing a bunch of people.
Set in Texas in 1980, the movie opens as an average Texan named Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) happens across a field where a drug deal has gone very, very wrong. Both sides have annihilated each other, which means that two million dollars in cash was never picked up. Grabbing the money, Llweleyn heads back to the trailer where he lives with his girlfriend (Kelly MacDonald), but later feels guilty and goes back to help the sole survivor, who begged for water. He arrives at the wrong time, just as a mob hitman named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) also shows up and decides to betray his boss (Stephen Root) and take the money himself. Llewelyn sends his girlfriend to stay with her mother so he can escape from Chigurh and eventually keep the money. Both Llewelyn and Chigurh are also unaware that Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) a local police officer, and another mob enforcer (Woody Harrelson) are both slowly piecing the puzzle together and pursuing them as well.
Those who are familiar with the Cohen's work will notice immediately that this film bears a strong resemblance to two of their previous works. Their first movie, Blood Simple, also concerned itself with characters chasing each other, without really knowing what the others were doing. The other is of course their great Fargo, which also featured a folksy and decent police officer observing a web of evil.
But I did not find this as compelling as those films. I have seen so many films about people who commit bad-ass acts of violence that perhaps I have been desensitized. For whatever reason, I never really found Chigurh to be particularly fighting. It may also be because I think his character is over-the-top. He reminded of Hannibal Lecter in a bad way, despite Bardem's strong performance.
There are few scenes where Bell mourns the passing of time, apparently finding that, you know, it changes. This is not exactly a deep message but it is also apparently what the movie wants to be about. The problem is that this material really has nothing to do with the main story about the assassin.
A lot of critics are calling this a masterpiece, and while it is a very good film, it is not in that league. I found myself watching emotionally detached, even when the movie gets genuinely original towards the end. I respect this movie, but I can't get very passionate about it.
No Country for Old Men (2007)