No Country for Old Men
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Movie Reviews of No Country for Old Men
Movie Review: A masterpiece film that requires patience and concentration to fully appreciate and understand
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great film. It's a bit off-kilter in tone, and it requires patience and close attention to fully appreciate. It reveals its secrets and the overall theme gradually. It's not easy, instantly delightful entertainment. It requires patience and thought. Many people do not understand the theme or how the last one-fourth of the film works perfectly to support it. It also transcends genres quite a bit: crime drama/western/noir/action/thriller - with a dash of comedy sprinkled into the dialog several times. So it's challenging, but if understood, rewarding to a degree few films ever achieve.
The cinematography is fascinating and beautiful in many scenes. The acting is outstanding throughout. Tommy Lee Jones' performance is elegant in his restrained, realistic delivery. Javier Bardem does a great job at making his role as an unrelenting killer/cleaner/enforcer into a truly creepy performance that's memorable long after the film ends. Josh Brolin is convincing in his role as a SW Texas blue-collar working man/veteran, confident in his ability to take care of himself and his wife. Kelly MacDonald and Woody Harrelson play important supporting roles with convincing skill.
Another point a lot of reviews don't mention: the dialog is superb. There are quite a few memorable exchanges, with a few jokes sprinkled in. Some make me laugh some make me think about the nature of what's happening in the film and what the characters think and feel about it. These are reasons a second viewing of the film helps. Most people (me included) didn't understand the significance of many lines on the first viewing, and retain a lot more the second time around.
The basic plot synopsis can be found hundreds of places, so for space purposes, I wont rehash it here. Look it up if you need to. Instead, I'll address the point of the film (some people seem to think it doesn't have one). Some interpretations of the film vary somewhat, so I'll offer here a very basic summation of the interpretations among the professional critics.
The key to understanding the point of the film is to understand the sheriff's perspective. He spells it out in his conversations with other characters. He's an older gentleman whose values and expectations for people's behavior were strongly cemented when he was much younger (it's that way for most people - we are products of the generation in which we grew up). In this film, a new era has arrived in America with the increase of drug smuggling and violence (this is shortly after Nixon's creation of the DEA). Set in 1980, this era saw the level of violence in the drug trade rise to new heights. As society evolves, criminals change their tactics. As this happens, those who can't or won't adapt (the "old men") are left behind in terms of their ability to cope. The sheriff states he doesn't understand what's going on (in general) and that he feels over-matched. He's right. He never quite catches up with the criminals or Lewellyn. He doesn't have the confidence or adaptability of younger men any more, and he "can't stop what's coming." Time to retire. Listen to the conversations he has with fellow officers and his uncle. Those conversations basically spell it out.
Chigurh may represent Death (as in the Grim Reaper) or fate. Single-minded in his purpose, he seems to know what will happen to people who get in his way, before it happens. "You know how this is going to end". As for some peripheral characters, he leaves it up to the fate of a coin toss. He states that the coin has been traveling to get there. In short, fate is largely predetermined, and he's acting as the enforcer. If this is his really the role he plays, then his actions are inevitable. No wonder they say he's "principled" in a way. He sees his actions as necessary and unavoidable, and so he relentlessly follows through on his word. "You don't have to do this." Actually, for his role, he really does need to do this.
Moss is a confident younger man who tempts "fate" by taking money that doesn't belong to him. He thinks he can get away with it and make a new life for himself and his wife. As a younger man, he's somewhat in denial about his chances to avoid the fate that ultimately awaits him. This stands in sharp contrast to the sheriff, who is resigned to the fact that he "can't stop what's coming." The sheriff's dreams as recalled in the end scene tell of him following his father. His father is dead, and if he were alive, wouldn't be any more capable in the new age than his son is. The son is following in his father's footsteps - toward retirement and eventual death - exiting from any participation in the new age.
We make choices, but change is inevitable, as is fate (I'm not sure I agree with fate's inevitability, aside from death, but it's interesting to think about). Some things we want to avoid, but some tides of change are just too big to stop. This interpretation fits in a number of ways, including in the actions of the major characters and their conversations.
As for the ending, it faithfully follows the book, and I think it's quite appropriate in reinforcing the main theme. It's also realistic in that real life doesn't have happy endings most of the time. Many times good people fail or die at the hands of evil perpetrators. Sometimes there's more than one party to evil acts (the Mexican drug runners, the financiers in Dallas, Chigurh the cleaner/enforcer). Moss isn't exactly a clean hero, either. It doesn't satisfy mainstream storytelling expectations (all things resolved, good triumphs over evil, etc.), but it is realistic, and the point is better reinforced that way.
As you can see, this film is quite thought-provoking, which is an effect I think only the best films have. For a more extensive explanation of the film's theme and how it is reinforced at various points in it, I encourage you to read the pro film critics' analysis'. Most of them are very good at film interpretation, and do a good job of explaining the theme, what each of the characters represent and how their actions/dialog support the theme. It seems there are many people who didn't see what the point of the film was, and that hindered their ability to enjoy it. Any decent quality analysis of the film will help.
I think this film made its point in an artful and entertaining way. Not everyone is going to like it due to gruesomely graphic violence in several scenes. Also, it has an overall vibe that's decidedly off-kilter from the mainstream, like most other Cohen Bros. films. It's one thing if you just flat out don't like the film, or were put off by the ending. That's understandable. But there is a point to the film, and it's supported pretty deeply in the action and dialog. So I reject the views claiming there's no redeeming value in the film or that it has no point. It simply isn't true. On the contrary, there are many who think there's a lot going on in the film. I'm one of them. I get a lot out of it. I think many others will, too, so that's why I give it high marks and recommend it.
Movie Review: Perhaps the best from the Coens
Summary: 5 Stars
With "No Country For Old Men" the Coen brothers finally craft a classic for the 00s to match their top contributions to prior decades. ("Blood Simple" and "Fargo," natch.) Though the Coens' films have largely managed to entertain over the past 13 years, the post-"Fargo" era has virtually never achieved the manic brilliance of their first dozen years, and the Coens have inched closer towards becoming the sort of artists that their early critics always claimed they were. (All flash and irony, no humanity.) Interestingly enough, the notoriously idiosyncratic frauteurs revived their stalling careers by saddling their own tendencies and faithfully recreating the work of another prominent artist. This is not to say the Coens have totally excised their own sensibilities, but they have nevertheless produced a work that is impressively faithful to Cormac McCarthy's driven, brutal novel. Though it is impossible to translate McCarthy's florid, allusive prose to the screen, this cinematic adaptation still mirrors the emphasis on texture found therein, and contains as controlled and deliberate a visual style as any thriller. Make no mistake, though few will deny that "No Country For Old Men" displays greater philosophical depth than the average thriller, it is on the purely dramatic level that the film most shines. In short, this is perhaps the best thriller of the past decade, and mandatory viewing for anyone evenly remotely interested in film.
Like many classically styled thrillers, "No Country For Old Men" opens with a fairly straightforward premise which is steadily complicated: Shortly after discovering the murderous capabilities of the enigmatic mercenary Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), we are introduced to Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) a Texan good ol' boy who stumbles on a cache of heroin along with nearly $2,000,000 from a drug deal turned bloodbath. After absconding with the cash, however, Moss's guilty conscience causes him to return to the scene to assist a dying man, where he is assailed by some cartel members. With his identity uncovered, Moss must leave behind his young wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) and flee with both the cartels and the mysterious Chigurh on his trail, while the local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) attempts to neutralize the situation before more blood is shed.
Put crassly, "No Country For Old Men" plays as a combination of "The Terminator" and "A Simple Plan." The former comparison is particularly apt, as Chigurh is effectively a high-lit T-800. Though human, of course, Chigurh displays no more humanity than Schwarzenegger's machine, and is instead a being of pure will and self-preservation, a self-styled over-man. Bardem's killer is not as philosophical as the novel's version (the speeches are too long for film), but Bardem nevertheless translates the peculiarly surreal, unbelievable character to the physical realm impressively. He doesn't quite look like the literary Chigurh (who is described as vaguely foreign with blue eyes, I think), but who could? Bardem's turn is, naturally, somewhat stiff, but he works through subtle expressions and eye movements, imbuing the character with subtle yet pure malevolence. As good as Bardem is, however, Josh Brolin is better. One relative weakness of the novel was my indifference towards Moss, but Brolin injects the somewhat thinly written character with real humanity and an endearing, simple sense of humor, along with a cunning, quick-witted intelligence rare to rural film characters. Tommy Lee Jones is relative a low point. He's solid, but seems a little more foolish and less dignified than was the novel's Bell, somewhat reflecting the Coens' typical portrayal of small town characters. Finally, in smaller roles we have solid turns from Kelly Macdonald as Moss's sweet but dim wife and Woody Harrelson as an overly cocky colonel-turned-mercenary. (I was skeptical about Harrelson, but he pulls the small role off impressively.)
All that said, the camera is the film's true star. "No Country For Old Men" is as purely visual as post-silent films come, with countless scenes filmed in near or complete silence. The movie has no music whatsoever prior to the credits, and is the rare film that must be seen in the theater to emphasize the enormous, endless quiet. The cinematography is always elegant, but this primarily serves to make the sporadic scenes of harsh violence all the more jarring. Nevertheless, the low-key scenes are the heart of the film, and allow the audience to enter the minds of the characters, to feel Moss's unrelenting anxiety as he discovers that he will not have a moment's piece in the foreseeable future. Most thrillers exist only for the climactic scenes, but the Coens impressively divide the intensity throughout the film as a whole, finding the drama in the passing of cars and the eerie quiet in the rural night.
All this leads to the film's conclusion, which many, particularly those unfamiliar with the novel, see as pretentious, anticlimactic and nihilistic. While the case can certainly be made, I feel the climax (or lack thereof) works. First: climaxes, particularly in well-crafted films, usually fail to live up to the build, a concern which this deliberately circumvented here. Second, the ending is decidedly thematically important, as it also was in the novel, albeit in somewhat different form. The most significant underlying theme of the novel is chance, the lack of control individuals have over their existing. By denying us the expected conclusion, the film illustrates this principle graphically, denying the characters the confrontation that they drive towards throughout the film. Finally, the conclusion is undeniably bleak, but it isn't forced in this way. Though I prefer dark, violent entertainment, I'm not some self-consciously edgy punk who thinks that nihilistic endings are inherently "real." The bleak ending, however, is justified by the film as a whole; it is inevitable. (This is in contrast to "Million Dollar Baby" and the like, which turn bleak merely to establish their critical bona fides.)
Hopefully this will mark a renaissance for the Coens, and perhaps the beginning to decidedly unexpected cinematic success for McCarthy. Unfortunately, "Burn After Reading" is all too similar to most recent Coens work, and we can't yet say how "The Road" and "Blood Meridian" will turn out. (I'm told many like "All the Pretty Horses," though I've never seen nor read it.) Either way, these three individuals are attached to one of the finest films of the 00s.
Grade: A
Movie Review: The Coens best film yet
Summary: 5 Stars
The Coen brothers never cease to amaze with their witty stories, excellent casting, and stunning screenplay. One movie in particular, is No Country For Old Men. This movie is very dark and serious, which is unusual for the Coens. Javier Bardem's portrayal of the killer for hire was horrifying. Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones also gave great performances. The Coens also did a great job at planning this storyline and picking the location. The action sequences had me on the edge of my seat, and every scene with Bardem was a "bone chilling" experience. There are some underlying themes the movie addresses, such as the changing times, the border war with Texas and Mexico, the concept of chance and predestination, among various other themes. No Country for Old Men won the academy award for best film and I believe it was the greatest of the Coen brothers genre.
No Country for Old Men is new territory for the Coen brothers. Their stories usually contain humor with a great storyline. No Country for Old Men is just a dark story with explicit violence and an amazing story. No Country for Old Men was originally a novel by Cormac McCarthy, and it is the first time the Coens have adapted a novel to film. The Coens made a dark comedy before called Fargo, but it still has some humorous moments in it. No Country for Old Men is straight up violence and intense action from scene one to the end.
The Coens always seem to employ the cast that just fits the movie. Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and Javier Bardem all played excellent roles in the movie. The story does not have too much depth to it overall. There is no background on the characters in the movie. The movie just starts with the story and hopes the audience can keep up. Brolin's character, Llewelyn Moss, is a hunter who stumbles upon drug money from a deal gone bad. Bardem's character, Chigurh, is a killer for hire sent to find who took the money and get it back. Tommy Lee Jones plays an aging sheriff who laments the changing world, and is trying to find Brolin before he gets killed by Bardem. Bardem is like a machine that kills all in his path, some critics even feel he represents the Grim Reaper, "It is his utter disregard for human life that have prompted some to equate his character to the idea of the Grim Reaper, a comparison that is only mildly appropriate considering many of his actions in the film." (Lovell, www.oscarguy.com).
Bardem's character, Chigurh, is a cold-hearted monster that believes in fate and chance. He allows some victims to save their own lives based on a coin toss. The only man that ever survives is an unsuspecting store clerk. Almost every scene involves Chigurh killing with his silenced shotgun, and even sometimes, his pressurized rod used to kill cattle. He is a psychopath, but he is deeper than your ordinary serial killer. Chigurh does have some kind of presence in the movie that sends chills down your spine every time he walks in. The scene where Brolin is expecting a killer to walk in is incredibly tense. The second the door lock is blown out of the door you know it is Chigurh, and you are in for a great duel. Brolin and Bardem's duel is one of the best moments of the whole movie. Every time Brolin is about to escape, Bardem seems to catch up and almost kill him. Chigurh's presence has brought chaos to this small Texas town, and in many ways, it's a slaughter. The one part of the movie that I am sure everyone is upset with is the ending. This may be a spoiler alert, so do not read this if you have not seen the movie. The ending has Bardem get in a car crash, and walk away with a bone sticking out of his arm. Then, it shifts back to Tommy Lee who explains a dream he had, and then the movie ends. Many people may be expecting a sequel with an end like that, but that is the way the Coens may have wanted to leave the movie.
The themes the Coens employ in the movie are intriguing. One in particular is Tommy Lee Jones' character, the old sheriff. He has been on the force for awhile just like his father before him. He has seen a lot being in Texas and on the border of Mexico. He has never seen anything compared to the death and destruction Chigurh has brought with him. Tommy Lee hopes to find Brolin, and save him before Chigurh gets to him. The movie is quite possibly named after Tommy Lee's character who has gotten old and laments the way the times are changing, and how he cannot stop it. The best explanation of this theme comes when Tommy Lee and a retired sheriff named Ellis are talking. Ellis says, "Whatcha got ain't nothin new. This country's hard on people, you can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity." It gives that sense of an older generation is moving out and making way for the new. No matter what happens, time never stops, people will get old, and younger people will take the reigns, so to speak.
The Coens also manage to utilize the location of the movie in rural Texas and the time is 1980. The townsfolk are all simple people with thick accents who cannot understand a personality such as Chigurh's. This may be one reason he kills so many citizens with ease. One interesting symbol of the movie is how it takes place at night mostly. The Texas night skies add to Bardem's darkness and personality. He is darkness personified and is like the Grim Reaper. Another symbol of the time is Bardem's hair. It was the hairstyle of the late seventies, and it will forever be remembered because of No Country for Old Men. The Coens also did a good job casting Tommy Lee, since he is a native Texan, and he even grew up close to the area where they filmed. They wanted the sheriff to be from the region since he is the soul of the movie.
In short, No Country for Old Men is a great movie directed and written by the Coens. The acting is spectacular and the action is even better. The movie may not have as much depth or background as one would like, but it is still a great movie, nonetheless. It is not a movie that makes you think, but it does bring excitement to whoever is watching it. Bardem's character "makes the film," so to speak. He is the driving force of No Country for Old Men. Brolin and Tommy Lee would be lost without him, but it is because of Bardem that I would give this movie five stars out of five. I can see why this movie got so many awards, and I would like to see Bardem in more films in the future.
Movie Review: Academy Award Winning "No Country For Old Men" leads you on a thrilling chase...
Summary: 5 Stars
"No Country For Old Men" is a film that, like a Salvador Dali piece of arte, challenges the audience to take in much more than the artist presents. In this case, the artists are the Coen brothers {Fargo}, the cinematography of the film, the psychological & moral compass Mankind so often finds itself lost without, and finally the three principle actors who each portray characters each locked into their own Gestalt effect. Viewers who did not like the film might attach too much macabre violence to it, and the entire psychology behind the themes of fatalism, causality, and life transition is too abstract. Indeed, the film propels you to abstract expressions of psychotic behavior, chance vs. fatalism, and life crises. Many viewers, like myself, who are above 30 take note of the entire expressionist & abstract themes of the film, because with age comes the dystopian realization that life is never what it seems, there are not set boundaries, no defining moral compass. Or is there? "No Country For Old Man" encourages you to think deeper about this question.
The events of the film unfold around a drug deal gone wrong leading to a bloody scene in the Mexican-American border of southwest Texas, Terrell County circa 1980. Josh Brolin plays Llewellyn Moss who happens on the scene by chance and finds $2 million amidst the carnage, and a Mexican dying of thirst in the Texas desert. Moss leaves the drug dealer for dead, but his conscience makes him return with fresh water only to find the man dead, and other miscreants out to collect the cash stash. Tommy Lee Jones gives a stellar performance as the looking-to-retire Sheriff who refuses to carry a gun and has the entire escapade and its cleary bloody results already deduced before Llewellyn and the hitman persuing him already know whats going on. Javier Bardem plays the ruthless hitman, and twist-of-fate Anton Chigurh who knocks the entire film off its moral axis, the old Texan Sheriff, Ed Tom Bell {Tommy Lee Jones}.
The three central characters pursue one another throughout the film, always seemingly one step ahead and behind the other, often missing their antagonist by mere minutes. Chigurh persues his prey, Llewellyn through Texas border towns, in and out of seedy motels and into Mexico. After Llewellyn confiscates the drug money he attempts to divert the inevitable hunt on him and his family by sending his wife, Carla, away from home. Llewellyn, Chigurh, and Sheriff Bell each circle each other in a hunt that quickly encloses all three in a brutal circle of violence that threatens their selfish and idealistic disposition of their simulacrum. By the film's end, fate and the chaotic spontaneity of chance smashes the gestalt effect. Is Sheriff Bell really selfish in thinking he could "make a difference" in the increasingly violent world? Was Llewellyn foolish in thinking fate would not catch up with him and the blood money? Was Chigurh truly psychotic or does he abide by a higher code commonfolk could never reach in a mundane moral compass?
The directors reduce the fragile world of the three central players to seedy hotels, desolate desert landscapes, and hostile adversaries. The pace of the film evokes a world that cannot keep up with the violence and moral uncertainty of daily life. The Sheriff realizes this from the beginning as he vainly tries to weave between right and wrong, perfectly done in a scene where the Sheriff's retired uncle accuses him of being selfish because good and evil were never clearly defined as he liked. Chigurh, sporting a Prince Valiant haircut, is coldly effective as the hitman hunting Llewellyn. Chigurh represents the idea of fatalism, and chance, to the unfortunate soul he encounters on his hunt for Llewellyn, eventually targeting his terrified wife.
Chigurh's character is the force of fatalism and causality that knocks the film of its moral axis, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Chigurh is the element of chance and fate, often cruel and deadly or rewarding beyond ones wildest desires. The theme of the film is that rules in life often derail us from living life, and seeing the world around us, unable to adapt to changing times. History and tradition mean something, but the experiences we miss are those that teach us to apply our old "rules" to something new. The film begins with a narration by the Sheriff:
"I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five. Hard to believe. Grandfather was a lawman. Father too. Me and him was sheriff at the same time, him in Plano and me here. I think he was pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old-time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lot of folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough never carried one. That the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one. Up in Commanche County. I always liked to hear about the old-timers. Never missed a chance to do so. Hoskins over in Batrop County knowed everybody's phone number off by heart. You can't help but compare yourself against the old timers. Can't help but wonder how they would've operated these times..."
In one of my favorite scenes, Chigurh asks a rival hitman {played by Woody Harrelson}: "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" Chigurh is saying here that rules if followed to rigidly only lead to failure if tradition cannot adapt to change and fate is seen as inevitable. The choices each character made has led them to cross Chigurh's deadly path. Were these the right choices? In one tense and humorous scene, Chigurh allows a character to choose his fate by calling a coin toss. Fate. Simple and direct, deadly and rewarding. I will not post spoilers on the ending or how these character's fates intertwine, the ending leaves much food for thought on the ideas in this review. Fate is simple and direct but always mutable, unless we remain rigid and fixed, finding that indeed there will be "no country for old men."
* If you liked Quentin Tarantino's U-Turn, Seven, or The Usual Suspects you will love "No Country For Old Men."
Movie Review: You can't stop what's coming; but why would you want to?
Summary: 5 Stars
`No Country for Old Men' could, for some, get lost in its own hype and wind up being that movie that everyone said you needed to see but proved to leave you wondering why everyone was so excited about it in the first place. It's become so over praised that one walks into it expected the second coming, and for many that is just not what they are going to witness.
But I urge you to pay close attention...because this movie is much more than you may think.
`No Country...' is a very well rounded and extremely well crafted thriller that never lets go of its unnerving pace and opens itself up for an intriguing study of humanity at its worst. It's a very, very good movie; a great movie at that; one that you will thoroughly enjoy and want to revisit time and time again.
The film follows Llewelyn Moss, an army vet who just so happens to stubble upon some drug money. Fully aware of the danger he's subjecting himself and his wife to he decides to take the money and run. What he doesn't realize is that the man responsible for the `danger' is not anything Llewelyn will be able to stand against. Anton Chigurh is death; plain and simple. Chigurh pursues Llewelyn with reckless abandon while Moss' wife Carla Jean tries to keep a level head about the whole episode. Llewelyn is also being pursued by the local Sheriff, Ed Tom Bell; an old timer who has just about had enough of what this `country' has turned into.
What helps elevate this film from standard thriller to exceptional cinema is the masterful cast; from the actors to the directors. Everyone involved in this film delivers top notch. Josh Brolin has been tampering with fame for a long time now and finally he's starred in something to be proud of. His portrayal of Llewelyn Moss is fantastically tempered and controlled. Tommy Lee Jones is also marvelous here. This is how I like my Jones; raw and emotionally crippled. He plays the down trodden `thinker' extremely well. Kelly Macdonald is flawless here, utterly flawless. She serves as a beating heart in a film filled to the brim with apathy.
The film though belongs to Javier Bardem. Everything that has been said about this man and his performance is true. He is commanding and relentlessly savage. There's a grin that appears on his face often within this film, a grin that gives way to his menacing insanity; a grimace that cements the character of Anton Chigurh in our minds forever. While I won't be one to say that Chigurh is as masterful a creation as Hannibal Lecter I will say that he is one of the most memorable and interesting villains ever to appear on the big screen.
I will say that there is no way that Bardem is `supporting' in this film for he has more screen time then any other actor and really, in the end, the film is all about him.
Joel and Ethan Coen masterfully wade through Cormac McCarthy's orgasmic novel and deliver a very faithful adaptation. Having just recently read the novel myself I was floored at how accurate a translation this film proved to be. That said, there are two scenes within the novel; my two favorite scenes at that; that were not represented well here. The first is not even part of the movie, and that is when Llewelyn picks up a young hitchhiker. They have a very deep and moving conversation that engrossed me so much that I was disappointed to see it completely snubbed here. The second is that of Carla Jean and Anton's unfortunate meeting. That meeting is here in the film, and it is probably the most moving scene in the film, but it's not given the attention it deserved. In the novel the scene is a little more lengthy and it's `completed'; here, in the film, it's left a little too `wide open'.
Those two issues are not enough to really complain about for the film is so smooth and so masterfully constructed that those minor squabbles are easily forgiven.
The Coen's have built a well oiled and hard working machine that offers the audience a `complete' experience. This is not a film built on mere acting or a well written script. It is a film that has those two things and then some. The film is a marvel to watch. The cinematography, while not showy, is commanding and awe inspiring. It captures the mood and emotion that this film sets out to create. The editing of this film is probably the finest I've seen all year. It's such a smooth ride; each scene masterfully running into the next. Another thing I appreciated is the lack of score here. I love a good score, but what the Coen's have done here was allow the film to speak for itself. The silence is unsettling and it forces the audience to fall inside the events on screen. This also allows us to truly pay attention to the small details; the footsteps, gun clicks and heavy breathing; all of which heighten the intensity of the film.
On the outset, `No Country for Old Men' may seem like an above average thriller; but there is so much more to this film then drugs, money and murder. Sure, it is not flawless but it's a film that is perfectly flawed, in that its flaws seem to embellish its beauty. The characters are walking flaws; the situation is a huge flaw; its reasoning is flawed, but in the end those flaws equal one amazing experience for they expose the imperfection that is this `country'.