No Country For Old Men (2007)

No Country For Old Men (2007)

In the Coen Brothers' (a writing/directing team) dark Best Picture-winning crime drama and violent western thriller, it based upon Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel; it told about a drug-deal gone horribly wrong in early 1980s West Texas. Its themes explored by its three main male protagonists (an aging Sheriff, a Texas cowboy, and a vicious hit-man) included the unpredictable forces of fate, luck, and choice in life, cruel violence in the world, and good vs. evil.

The highly-successful film, with a budget of 25ドル million, went on to gross revenues of 74ドル.3 million (domestic), and 171ドル.6 million (worldwide). Of its eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Best Film Editing (the Coens), Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing, the honored film won four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem).

• in the film's initial scene, old-time Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) made weary observations about the lack of value of human life during the opening images:
  • "I was Sheriff of this county when I was 25 years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman, father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time, him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time Sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carry one - that's the younger Jim. Gaston Borkins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County....The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willin' to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet somethin' I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say: 'O.K., I'll be part of this world.'"

• a case of the bad-drug deal (and its two main suspects) was under the purview of wise, about-to-retire, disillusioned and laconic Terrell County Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, a third-generation law officer who was dismayed by the increasing violence and trail of carnage (it was truly "no country for old men")
• in an opening tense scene, a young deputy (Zach Hopkins) was strangled to death by the handcuffed amoral, ferocious, and violent thrill-killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), one of the scariest villains ever created, using his handcuffs as a garrote from behind; after the killing, he reacted with a grinning, satisfied exhalation, and then walked away from the bloody, scuffed-up floor from the flailing boots of the struggling man
• there were relentless pursuit efforts of brutal sociopathic hitman Anton Chigurh, who had escaped police custody and jail, to recover a satchel with 2ドル million dollars from the aftermath of the failed drug deal; the money had been retrieved by Vietnam veteran, welder and local Texas cowboy Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), who came upon the bloody aftermath of a bad heroin drug deal and shoot-out in the desert, and discovered the drug funds cash
• in the film's infamous coin-toss wager scene, Chigurh threateningly offered a Texaco gas station manager an enigmatic choice, in a cat-and-mouse conversation:
  • "What's the most you've ever lost in a coin toss?...The most you ever lost in a coin toss....Call it...Yes...Just call it....You need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair....You've been putting it up your whole life - you just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin?... 1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it....Everything...You stand to win everything, call it."

• the enigmatic Chigurh killed other victims with a compressed-air cattlegun as he pursued the satchel with the money, held by Moss
• meanwhile, a Dallas businessman (Stephen Root), involved somehow in the drug deal, hired Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), a bounty hunter, to control the "situation" with Chigurh and retrieve the money; Chigurh relentlessly tracked after Moss and engaged in a number of confrontations and gun firefights, including killing Wells
• during the exciting chase and cat-and-mouse pursuit game between Chigurh and Moss, the latter waited in his border town of Eagle Pass, TX hotel room for the arrival of Chigurh to collect the money - Moss had the funds in a satchel (not knowing it had signaled his exact location with a hidden radio transponder to hired killer Chigurh)
• in the tense scene, Moss discovered the transponder and knew Chigurh would arrive momentarily for a showdown there; he sat readied with his shotgun after turning out the light and peering under the door; the two engaged in a vicious and bloody struggle that ended on the street and left Moss severely wounded (with a gunshot wound on his right side), and Chigurh shot in the leg
• in the concluding scene, the evil and remorseless killer Chigurh confronted Llewelyn Moss's young and innocent (and now-widowed) wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald) in her bedroom, before her murder (off-screen); she spoke first:
  • "I knew this wasn't done with. I ain't got the money. What little I had is long gone and there's bills a-plenty to pay yet. I buried my mother today. Ain't paid for that neither....I need to sit down. You got no cause to hurt me..."
• Anton explained how he had earlier pledged to Moss that he would kill her if he didn't bring him the 2ドル million in stolen drug money: "No, but I gave my word...to your husband." [Note: This was despite the fact that Moss had already been murdered by Mexican drug lords in an El Paso motel, not Anton, and was thus unable to deliver the money.] She responded:
  • "That don't make sense. You gave your word to my husband to kill me?"
• Chigurh tried to explain:
  • "Your husband had the opportunity to save you. Instead, he used you to try to save himself"
• after she told him: "Not like that. Not like you say. You don't have to do this," the killer responded: "People always say the same thing...They say, 'You don't have to do this'."
• Chigurh then offered her his usual 50/50 chance of survival by flipping a coin ("OK. This is the best I can do. Call it"), but she refused:
  • "I knowed you was crazy when I saw you sittin' there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me... I ain't gonna call it...The coin don't have no say - it's just you."
• he replied: "I got here the same way the coin did"; she was then predictably murdered (off-screen), signified by his leaving the house alone; after remorselessly killing her and leaving her house, his car was broadsided at an intersection and he was severely injured
• in the sorrowful ending sequence - retired Sheriff Ed Tom Bell recollected two dreams about his Sheriff-father and wistfully related the second one to his wife Loretta (Tess Harper) - a metaphor for mortality in life shortly after the brutal and senseless deaths of his Vietnam vet friend Llewelyn Moss (killed by Mexicans in a motel in El Paso) and Moss' wife Carla Jean by psycho-killer Anton Chigurh:
  • "..The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by - just rode on past. And he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down. When he rode past, I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do, and I-I could see the horn from the light inside of it - about the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold. And I knew that whenever I got there, he'd be there. And then I woke up."