No Country for Old Men at the Grand

The new Coen Brothers film, “No Country for Old Men,” is a brutal but stunningly good film.

If you hold it up with “Blood Simple,” their first film, and “Fargo” you have a triology of great crime dramas. The Coens understand that the best crime dramas are simple, direct, and driven by the immediate needs of compelling characters. Their style fits this story perfectly.

“No Country” starts with the remains of a drug deal gone wrong. Everyone’s dead, and there’s nearly two million in cash just laying around. Llewelyn Moss, played by Josh Brolin, finds it while out hunting. A pyschopathic killer is trying to get it (and him), played by a very menacing Javier Bardem.

And always a few paces behind is Sheriff Bell, played by Tommy Lee Jones in a character not unlike his Oscar-winning performance as a US Marshal in “The Fugitive.” He still has the quips (Deputy: It sure is a mess, ain’t it, Sheriff?. Sheriff: If it’s not, it’ll do till the mess gets here). But this time he’s seen too much. It’s 1980 and the tide of the world is getting to scare even him. In a wonderful opening monologue he tells us that working in law enforcement now risks more than your life, it risks your soul. Sheriff Bell is at the core of why this is such a good movie, even if we don’t see him for long sections of it.

I would say that you should read the novel by Cormac McCarthy first. Or I would have said that before I’d seen the film. They both are top notch, and now I don’t think the book would be any worse after seeing the film.

If there’s any weakness, and I’m not saying there is, it’s shared by the book: a key plot element, something the reader and the viewer have both been waiting for, is skipped over. I’m still not entirely sure of the reason. I think it’s because we know that scene will be coming. And showing it, or writing it, would be anti-climactic, because the whole point is that it’s exactly what everyone (or everyone minus one) saw coming.

See the movie. It opens today at the Grand Cinema.