A quirky and bloody meditation on the rising tide of violence in America by the Coen brothers.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:221
Fresh:208
Rotten:13
Average Rating:8.5/10
Consensus: Another triumph for the Coen Brothers, No Country has the perfect mixture of suspense, humor, and desperately compelling performances. The seemingly simple story hides a more complex narrative, and high tension is maintained throughout.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for strong graphic violence and some language.
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Genre: Drugs, Suspense, Thriller, Murder, Theatrical Release, Serial Killers, Money
Theatrical Release:18-01-2008
Synopsis: With NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the Coen Brothers have found a perfect match in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy. Their adaptation of McCarthy's praised novel is a staggering masterpiece.... With NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, the Coen Brothers have found a perfect match in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy. Their adaptation of McCarthy's praised novel is a staggering masterpiece. In this almost impossibly faithful adaptation, the film takes place in a small Texas border town in 1980. Sheriff Bell (a never-been-better Tommy Lee Jones) has ruled the land for years without the use of a gun, but a new brand of reckless lawlessness has taken over his town. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is an innocent Everyman with a devoted wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), but when he stumbles across a drug deal gone deadly and finds two million dollars, he's determined to keep it for himself. There's only one problem. He's being pursued by one of the most amoral, evil psychopaths that the big screen has ever seen. Wearing an absurd haircut and brandishing a pressurized weapon that's used to murder cattle, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) creeps forward on his mission to track Moss down and return the money to its rightful owners to save his own skin. As the tension mounts, the body count begins to rise, confirming Sheriff Bell's inability to battle this new wave of modern brutality. The most striking thing about the Coen Brothers' thriller is their masterly use of silence to create an almost unbearable level of tension. Cinematographer Roger Deakins is once again at the top of his game, beautifully capturing this stark and lonely world. The well-rounded cast is clearly excited to be a part of such a stellar production--particularly Bardem, whose Chigurh is a freakishly mysterious monster, and is certain to haunt viewers long after the final credit has rolled. In a career filled with striking achievements, this might very well be the Coen Brothers' finest. It is filmmaking at its best. [More]
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Kelly MacDonald
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Kelly MacDonald, Woody Harrelson, Stephen Root
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Screenwriter: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Producer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Scott Rudin
Composer: Carter Burwell
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for No Country for Old Men
In adapting this most un-Coen-like material, the brothers have come up with a winner: an action film with a serious philosophical undertone.
The Coen Brothers have gotten their mojo back with the help of Cormac McCarthy.
This is one of [the Coens'] best films, yet, its indelible images resonating long after the final credits roll.
It could serve as a model of prose-to-film adaptation, choosing exactly the right moments and movements for the picture, and leaving alone others that are better suited to literature.
...the Coen brothers' most consistent and flat-out entertaining effort since 1996's Fargo...
No Country For Old Men is a strong addition to the Coen Bros. shelf and will certainly please fans of crime stories while exciting action aficionados. And both groups will chuckle more than once.
A terrific return to form on a par with Fargo and other Coen classics.
Written almost exclusively in taut dialogue, the book already reads like a screenplay, and the Coen brothers have taken full advantage.
No Country for Old Men feels like a movie the Coens would have made years ago. The star power is there but unobtrusive, the palette harsh and unfriendly, but perfectly pitched to the story's tone.
Like a pair of owlish mind readers, the Coen brothers have somehow done exactly the right thing to repuff their sagging artistic momentum.
No Country for Old Men represents the Coen brothers' strongest filmmaking in the nine years since The Big Lebowski.
A stark modern-day Western featuring Javier Bardem as the creepiest movie psycho this side of Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs.
The most ambitious and impressive Coen film in at least a decade, featuring the flat, sun-blasted landscapes of west Texas and an eerily memorable performance by Javier Bardem.
No Country delivers, with suspense scenes as taut as they are acutely observed.
A brilliant example of how plot devices as simple as murder and money can be used to explore larger sweeping themes of mortality, morality and more -- while still delivering rousing, intelligent pure entertainment.
The Coens' typically superior filmmaking sustains the electrifying mood for most of the picture, but they are undone by being too faithful to the source novel by Cormac McCarthy.
A scorching blast of tense genre filmmaking shot through with rich veins of melancholy, down-home philosophy and dark, dark humor.
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