Rated by 2 users
Director:
Ethan Coen, Joel CoenProducer:
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Scott RudinMusic:
Carter BurwellScreenplay:
Ethan Coen, Joel CoenStory:
Ethan Coen, Joel CoenGenres:
Adventure , Drama , Thriller , WarCertification:
RestrictedDate of Release:
November 21, 2007
Cast Overview
- Ed Tom Bell
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Anton Chigurh
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Llewelyn Moss
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Carson Wells
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Carla Jean Moss
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Wendell
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Loretta Bell
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Ellis
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Man who hires Wells
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El Paso Sheriff
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Agnes (Carla Jean's Mom)
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Poolside Woman
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Molly (Sheriff Bell's Secretary)
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Strangled Deputy
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Man in Ford
Plot Summary
The plot follows the interweaving paths of the three central characters (Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh, and Ed Tom Bell) set in motion by events related to a drug deal gone bad near the Mexican-American border in southwest Texas in Terrell County.
While Llewelyn Moss is hunting antelope, he stumbles across the aftermath of a drug-related gun battle which has left everyone dead except a single badly-wounded Mexican. Moss finds a truck full of heroin and a satchel with $2.4 million in cash. Leaving the Mexican alive, he takes the money, which ignites a hunt for him that stretches for most of the remaining novel. He sends his wife, Carla Jean Moss, to her mother while he leaves his home with the money.
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell investigates the drug crime while trying to protect Moss and his young wife with the aid of other law enforcement. The sheriff is haunted by his actions in World War II, for which he received a Bronze Star. Now in his late 50s, Bell has spent most of his life attempting to make up for the incident when he was a 21-year-old soldier. He makes it his quest to resolve the case and save Moss.
Complicating things is the arrival of Anton Chigurh, a hitman hired to recover the money. Chigurh uses a captive bolt pistol (called a "cattlegun" in the text) to kill many of his victims and to destroy several cylinder locks in order to open doors. He also wields a silenced shotgun.
In one of his final murders described in the book, he gives a long speech about causality and fate to his victim.
Carson Wells, a rival hitman and ex-partner of Chigurh, is also on the trail of the money.
McCarthy tells the story in two voices. The bulk of the book is presented in third person, but this is interspersed with first person reminiscences from Sheriff Bell. The reliance on dialogue and the sketchbook revelation of plot details lend a mystical air to the work. For example:
…when you encounter certain things in the world, the evidence for certain things, you realize that you have come upon something that you may not very well be equal to… When you've said that it's real and not just in your head, I'm not all that sure what it is you have said.
Taglines
- There Are No Clean Getaways
- One discovery can change your life. One mistake can destroy it.
Trivias
- Heath Ledger had been in talks to co-star in the movie, but withdrew to take "some time off" instead.
- Title of the film is taken from W.B. Yeats' poem, "Sailing to Byzantium".
Maxabout.comEditor Review
MOVIE REVIEW - NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Thursday, May 08, 2008
In February 2008 when the 80th Academy Awards were held, everyone’s eyes were on the result to know the most outstanding in the movie industry. The best picture award went to ‘No Country for Old Men (2007)’, and other movie which acclaimed was the ‘There Will Be Blood (2007)’.
No Country for Old Men won the Best Picture
Cast: Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones
Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen who also got the Best Director for the movie.
No Country for Old Men, is a movie based on the novel from Cormac McCarthy’s by the same name. It is a Texas-Mexico based crime thriller that is set in motion in aftermath of a skewed drug deal that left all the parties dead. The interesting thing in the movie is a cat-and-mouse chase for the money of the deal that found its way into the hands of a huntsman played by Josh Brolin, who is determined to keep for himself the two million dollars that he stumbles upon in the scene of the felony and a professional hit man played by Javier Bardem, who is entrusted to retrieve it. Tommy Lee Jones plays the local police officer who also joins the hunt carried across the border. The thriller shows life threatening attacks and narrow escapades that leaves behind a string of murders and bloodbath and keeps the audience guessing. The technical team of the movie has done well too keeping in pace with the story line.
Bardem is armed with a unique weapon which is a captive bolt pistol and is striking in shoes of a coldblooded and psychopath antagonist. The film also projects extreme calmness and implacability and at times renders a chilly sensation in the melancholic pursuit guided by rule of the gun and reckless lawlessness. The director duo Coen brothers have done the brilliant job as they keep every sequence intact of the thrill and the dialogues are so apt with the characters. The Coen brothers advance the story through the medium of overwhelming and uncanny silence; words are used but used frugally and each time a character speaks, there is so much depth in the dialogues. However, at its core, the movie remains characteristically vague, being a sequence of events, devoid of a more generalized substance.
In comparison to the book, the movie has succeeded in giving fair justice to the subject. The actors too have acted good and made you feel the characters. But as a personal reader of the book and the viewer of the movie, my personal vote goes for the book and I found it better than the movie. But if you opt for finishing the book in two hours then opting for the movie is not at all the bad option. And with popcorns in your favorite multiplex and friends, the thrill of watching this thriller would entice you and over all it is a good pick. After all it’s the best movie at OSCARS.