Monday, December 3, 2007

No Country for Old Men


I so rarely do this, but if you like Blood Simple you're gonna like No Country for Old Men. This is the latest movie from the writing/directing team of brothers Joel and Ethan Cohen. Most of their movies are quirky and a little odd (even though they're also all great) but their first movie, Blood Simple, was a tense, straightforward, dark suspense film. This is a return to that form. In No Country the brothers create a movie that is a slow boil and a world that is gritty, harsh and genuine. From the first seconds of the film people are dying and things are going very wrong. No Country tells the story of a guy from west texas who's come back from Vietnam only to live a boring life, living in a trailer and doing not a whole lot. Suddenly he finds a bag of money (over $2million) among a bunch of dead bodies in the desert and finds himself in a world of shit. See the money was part of a big drug deal and the people who supplied the drugs want the money and the good ole boys from Houston want their money back (since they never got the drugs). Both parties hire ruthless people to track one thing, that vietnam vet named Llewellyn Moss. A west texas sheriff is also looking for him to save him in an attempt to do one last good thing before retiring. Unfortunately for everyone, one of the people hired to find Moss for the Houston boys is a damn psychopath named Cigur. Javier Bardem's portrayal of Cigur is pitch perfect. He truly embodies this truly scary, heartless man. And his performance is by far the best thing about the film. It's a good flick that is certainly worth a watch and will have you biting your nails from moment one. Again, if you've seen Blood Simple and have been waiting for another movie like that to come along, then this is it.

Worth Watching

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