No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel No Country for Old Men began life as a screenplay, written far more simply than McCarthy’s usual prose, which is traditionally far more complicated and introspective. That is not to say this script isn’t those things, just dialed back a bit because of the nature of screenplays. Eventually, though, McCarthy took this script and made it into a short novel instead, fleshing a few things out but leaving it relatively as is.  

This novel was a great success, as is much of McCarthy’s oeuvre, and it wasn’t long before someone came along and bought up the film rights. That person was producer Scott Rudin, a man whose career spans many decades and is well known for being the man behind many of Wes Anderson’s bigger films. When Scott bought up the rights to No Country for Old Men, he had Joel and Ethan Coen in mind. The Coen Brothers had already established themselves as high-calibre writers and directors who had a strong sense of atmosphere and characters, and they saw an opportunity to play with genre conventions with this one.  They agreed in the summer of 2005 to take on the challenge of adapting this story to film and began writing the script. The final result is atypical from the usual Coen Brothers’ style of filmmaking in some ways yet still very much a film of their makings. It hews close to the source material, much as their adaptation of True Grit, while also embellishing some characters in ways only they seem to be able to do. 

The film, when boiled down to the basics, is about two men in a cat-and-mouse chase. The first is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), a hitman. When we are first introduced to Anton, he has been arrested in Texas. It doesn’t take long, though, before he has strangled the arresting officer with his handcuffs and escaped in the stolen police car. This is a man who is dangerous and smart, waiting for the right moment to strike rather than doing something foolish that could get himself killed. His killing of the officer tells us something else about him, too. He uses his own restraints to strangle him, pulling so hard that the cuffs slice into his wrists as he does it. He also uses a unique weapon, a cattle gun that utilizes air pressure to dispatch with animals prior to slaughter. This device is less threatening than a gun, at first glance, but is just as deadly as a bullet to the head. It’s also handy when it comes to shooting out the locking mechanisms in doorknobs. 

Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Texas man who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is out hunting when he comes across the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong. What he finds is several dead bodies, lots of drugs, and a satchel filled with $2 million. He takes the money, not realizing just how much trouble he is getting himself into. He’s not completely stupid, though. He sends his wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), to her mother’s to visit just in case someone comes around looking for their money. He does return to the scene of the drug deal, though, and what he finds upon his return is more people waiting at the sight; men with guns who open fire on him as soon as he arrives. Thus begins a chase between Llewelyn, the Mexican cartel, and Anton Chigurh who was hired to find the missing money and is so intent on retrieving it that he doesn’t care who he kills to get it. On the heels of all of them is County Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who is investigating the failed drug deal and is feeling the weight of a world that he no longer feels he understands. 

One of the first things you will notice when watching No Country for Old Men is that it nails the atmosphere of Texas on the Mexican border. This is dusty, dirty country with large swaths of desert, and you can feel that in virtually every scene. The Coen Brothers have done a tremendous job at evoking a time and a place in such a way that even watching it in an air-conditioned room, you feel the desert heat baking off of you. Roger Deakins, who has been the go-to man for the Coens, as well as Sam Mendes among many others, understood the assignment and turned in a film that was so amazingly well-filmed that it earned him a well-deserved Academy Award nomination. 

It’s not just the scenery, either. The actors are selling the location, too. Kelly MacDonald has probably the biggest challenge in this area thanks to her naturally thick Scottish accent. She masks it so well, though, that you forget just who it is you are watching and believe she is legitimately from the South. She doesn’t get a lot of screentime, but it doesn’t matter; she stands out amongst a cast of hard hitters. But for all her hard work masking that accent, the one who got the most critical attention was Javier Bardem. 

Javier had a well-established career in his native Spain before transitioning over to American films in the early 2000s. He had some notable roles in films such as Collateral with Tom Cruise and Love in the Time of Cholera, but it was No Country for Old Men that skyrocketed his stardom and set his career into orbit. Anton Chigurh is the kind of character that many actors would love to sink their teeth into. He doesn’t speak much, but when he does, it is absolutely chilling. He’s described as a man with a code, and we see that. We also see that he doesn’t have problems killing the innocent, and not just when it furthers his goals. We see this in his meeting with Carla Jean near the end of the film. We get a taste of it when he has an encounter with a gas station attendant who asks the wrong question out of polite conversation. Later, though, he will come across a woman who doesn’t show him any fear and refuses to provide him with the information he is asking for. In this situation, he shows her respect and leaves her unharmed. It’s only when he confronts someone who fears him that he layers on the intimidation. 

This character could have been very two-dimensional. We really don’t learn anything of note about his background, which only adds to the mystery of where this man came from. He’s not presented as superhuman, and he can be hurt. He, however, never seems rattled and comes after Llewelyn like an Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator cyborg. The way he is depicted, there is always the sense that Llewelyn just might not make it.

And that is one of the many ways that this film surprises you. This ending is not what you expect from a mainstream movie. Nor are the quiet, introspective moments that come whenever Tommy Lee Jones is on screen. Sheriff Bell is on the cusp of retirement, and there is that old cliché about the officer getting killed just three days before retirement. Yet not only will he not die, he never comes into contact with Anton or any of the Mexican cartel. He is always just too late, often by mere minutes, from the real action. But it is from his perspective that we get the musings of just how bad the world is these days. And yet, when he visits his cousin Ellis and tells him he is going to retire because he feels overmatched by the recent violence, Ellis tells him a story about Indians and senseless violence a century before. What has happened now is nothing new.

No Country for Old Men is a film with a lot of surprises. It has plenty of violence and brutality, but that is not the film’s main focus. At its heart is a drama about greed and consequences. We’ve all seen the meme asking what we would do if we found a briefcase full of money. The best of us can honestly say we’d turn it in to the police. Most of us, though, would make the same mistake Llewelyn makes and would probably pay for it with our lives. This film is one of the Coen Brothers’ greatest films, right up there with The Big Lebowski and True Grit, showcasing them when they are firing on all cylinders. It earned them Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Directors, and Best Adapted Screenplay. They were also nominated for the editing but lost that award to Christopher Rouse for The Bourne Ultimatum. Had they taken that one, too, they would have tied Walt Disney for the most wins in a single year. Instead, that record stayed with Disney until 2024 when Sean Baker tied it for Anora. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Scott Rudin, Joel Coen, and Ethan Coen (won)

Best Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (won)

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (won)

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins

Best Film Editing: Joel and Ethan Coen (Credited as Roderick Jaynes)

Best Sound Editing: Skip Lievsay

Best Sound Mixing: Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter Kurland

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Release Date: November 9, 2007

Running Time: 122 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin

Directed by: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen