No Country for Old Men is the most well-received and critically acclaimed adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy (my favorite author) novel. There have been six. The Road is, by far, my favorite McCarthy novel and a movie masterpiece. The others are the slightly underrated All the Pretty Horses, the disappointing box office flop The Counselor, the virtually unseen Child of God, and The Sunset Limited, a film I still need to see. No Country for Old Men is the only McCarthy-adapted film to receive an Oscar, earning eight nominations and four wins, including the first nomination and win in Best Achievement in Directing for Hollywood darlings Joel and Ethan Coen.
While I did enjoy No Country for Old Men (even more on my rewatch in 2023 than my initial viewing in the theater), it did not crack my Top 10 of the Year list. 2008 was stacked with classics like The Dark Knight, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Slumdog Millionaire, along with others like Iron Man (still the best Marvel origin story film), The Reader, Rachel Getting Married, The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road, and others. In another year, perhaps. Perhaps not. I found No Country for Old Men to be engrossing and enjoyable, but I never felt like I was watching the masterpiece like so many others have attested.
Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos, Biutiful) won his first Academy Award for his performance as Anton, a lumbering loner hitman who walks with a limp, killing almost everyone he meets with a captive bolt pistol concealed as a tank of compressed air. In 1980s Texas, Anton is hired to retrieve a bag of money from a failed drug deal in the abandoned desert wilderness. Upon arrival, he learns that everyone has been killed and the drugs are still present, but that the bag of $2,000,000 is missing.
We then learn that Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin – Sicario, Everest), a wealthless hunter living in a deserted trailer with his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald – Anna Karenina, Finding Neverland), has stumbled upon the scene of the crime and found the money. Rather than handing it over to authorities, he takes the money, unbeknownst that the bag has a responder that will allow Anton, who has the receiver, to hunt him down. Such becomes the game of cat and mouse, involving Anton killing, without remorse, just about anyone who gets in his way. Throw in a Mexican Cartel looking to recoup the $2,000,000 stolen for them, and you get an early sense that this may not end well for anyone involved.
Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones – The Fugitive, The Company Men) is in his final days before retirement and tasked with attempting to track Anton down before he can kill any more innocent people. Bell is essentially an old man in a world that doesn’t have a place for him anymore. He seems to find himself always a step or two behind Anton. Bell questions his place in this new world, remembering when he felt safe without a gun and contrasting that to his current case, where a ruthless, apathetic killer like Anton follows his own moral compass instead of governed law. It’s a world that Bell no longer recognizes or wants to be a part of, at least as a member of law enforcement.
You’ll notice some similar themes if you’ve seen Fargo (also directed by the Coen brothers). While No Country for Old Men is far more serious in tone, there are still a handful of scenes where you wonder how Llewelyn (the film’s protagonist) could do so many stupid things. Paranoid to the core because of Anton’s ability to continually find him, Llewelyn is prone to a series of careless mistakes, which make his downfall all the more likely as the film creeps towards its conclusion.
No Country for Old Men is about generational change, how time passes, whether we are ready for it, and the increase in violence of people who want to improve their lives and are much more willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that. The baron Texas desert serves as the landscape for men bent on upholding their narcissistic, self-gratifying, destructive tendencies. It is worthy of its critical acclaim, eight Academy Award nominations, and four wins (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Adapted Screenplay). It’s a film that all should see at least once.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing 8.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 8.5/10
83.5%
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