No Country For Old Men

The Coen brothers have been a family favorite since their first movie, "Blood Simple". In the way it happens in families, I get the credit for it. I was 17 and had read a great review and my friend and I went to go. But she was only 16 and couldn't get in the R rated movie so we went back home, collected my folks and went back. My family have been fans ever since, through the good ("Raising Arizona" "Fargo") the bad ("The Man Who Wasn't There") and the indifferent ("Intolerable Cruelty").

Though I haven't ever read Cormac McCarthy, I was looking forward to this adaptation since the Coens have amply demonstrated they get how to portray violence on the screen and I have sold enough McCarthy to get that's key with him. But I was still shocked at how unbelievably tense the movie is. I don't believe I sat up straight from the opening till the credits rolled and there were several scenes when I was completely contorted, trying to cover my ears and eyes at the same time. From what I gather it seems that the Coens were super faithful to the book, not only putting entire conversations up on the screen word for word but also by filming it in a very McCarthyish way. For example, the extreme lack of music reflects his spare, unpunctuated writing style. And I don't know if the windows motif used in the film is intimated in the book, but it also worked well. For every window shown (and they are many) none are clean and many don't even remain intact, again visually amplifying the theme. Another good visual trick was the reflection in the trailer's TV. We see the pursuer sitting in the exact spot as the prey-not only does it add to the tension but also links the two men as opposite sides of the coin. Nice.

But in my opinion as a longtime fan the best thing about any Coen brothers movie is the acting. They have the gift of getting the best from the people they are working with. In this case it is hard to single out anyone since they are all so terrific. (It seems to be the kind of movie the Best Ensemble Cast award was made for and not just because there is no true lead-another fun thing about this one that harkens back to the shower shock of "Psycho"). But, that won't stop me.

Yeah, Bardem's baddie is so bad I had nightmares and Brolin's got self aware dumbassedness down but I think Tommy Lee Jones is not getting near enough credit for this one. Most critics seem to think he's just using his same old bag of tricks but I couldn't disagree more. Yeah, I think his physical qualities-that gravelly voice, that careworn face-are often used as shorthand by both directors and himself when they're being lazy (see that Ashley Judd piece of crap "Double Jeopardy") but that's not the case here. There is an expression of exquisite pain on his face that just grows and grows the deeper into this mess his character gets. He has seen things before, yes, but this one is the straw that is breaking the camel's back. We see that in his pushing away his breakfast, in his request to his secretary to call his wife only after he leaves-the signs are small but they are there. It was also clever casting because this role reminds viewers of Jones' other work-the pursuer of "The Fugitive", the mentor of the "Men in Black" movies (can I just interject that I was so happy to see Garret Dillahunt finally play a good guy? It helped erase the memory of his "Deadwood" and "Life" psychos.) and the cowboy of "Lonesome Dove" but builds on all them. If Jones wasn't absolutely creditable in every scene up to then the controversial ending wouldn't have a chance of working (granted for some, it didn't but I think that's more an audience expectation thing) since it's solely up to him to deliver it. And, though again not having read McCarthy this might be just me, I found despite the fact that Jones' character knows what he knows and believes what he does the fact that he still wants so badly to live, which we see when he is crossing the crime scene tape at the motel, is a kind of cockeyed optimism.

So if it seems like I'm going on and on I am, which is another thing about the Coen's movies-they inspire talk and debate even weeks later which I would say is another sign they're doing something right.