No Country for Old Men

First Hit: This was a powerful and somewhat disturbing film.

The Coen brothers make films that move beyond telling tales conventionally.

This film is no different. We are introduced to each of the main characters by way on tonal scenes. Tommy Lee Jones plays Sheriff Bell who has spent his entire life as a peace officer as was his grandfather.

The tone set here is that he is smart, astute, and has seen a lot. He notes that the times, people and the crimes are changing and he is about finished as a law man.

Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss who is in tune with the open Texas country and is a determined man who finds his ticket to financial freedom when he comes across a drug deal gone bad. His conscious is conspicuous when he lies awake the first night after finding the money, gets up, and takes a gallon of water back out to the crime scene to give to the only half-dead survivor. You know that he cares and it is his downfall.

Javier Bardem, plays Anton Chigurh the psychopathic killer out to retrieve the money and doesn’t let anyone or anything get in his way. He is singularly focused and at times very eerie as emotion and feelings rarely are given light through the blank almost dead eyes.

These three characters play their scenes separately and with different deftly crafted tones until near the end when Llewelyn and Anton share a brief gun battle.

As the film winds down each of the characters are given their exit which exemplifies their character.

Overall: In general I liked the film, however pacing was somewhat problematic to me as there were two times my eyes left the screen and looked around at the other audience members wondering how they were receiving this film.

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