NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Director: The Coen Brothers (Fargo, Blood Simple, many more)

Starring: Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones

Put simply, I think this is the Coen brothers best film (and that's high praise). Fargo was a wonderful creation, but this film is richer in many ways. It's also deeper, much better written and much more meaningful. It's no coincidence that this is the Coen's first film using a script adapted from other material, and excellent material at that - National Book Award winner Cormac McCarthy's novel (albeit not the novel he won the award for ...).

The Coen's have shown themselves many times over to be extremely talented at the art (and craft) of filmmaking. They know pacing, and editing, story, and tension, They definitely know atmosphere. The problem (if you can even claim there was a problem) was that their films were generally silly little romps (not that there's anything wrong with that). These two were talented enough to tackle harder subjects, but seemed to just plain enjoy weirdness and wackiness too much to even want to tackle harder subjects. Fargo was the closest the pair came to melding their unique, kooky style to real human issues, and real human emotions, until now. This film is occasionally absurd. It's occasionally funny. It's occasionally weird. It's always terrifying, and mesmerizing, and excellent. This will undoubtedly be one of the best films of 2007.

In addition to all of the praise I've given the Coen's, there's much left over for the actors. Jones, Brolin and Bardem were all successful enough in their roles to warrant Oscar nominations. Jones (as a rural Texas sheriff) begins the film with a voiceover, telling us about a criminal he once caught. His lawyers may have claimed he killed in the heat of the moment, but the criminal confided to Jones that he always knew was going to kill. It was all a matter of when that was going to be. Jones conceds that to fight that kind of evil puts your own soul in jeopardy, and that's not a pleasant proposition for any man.

Yes, the story revolves around (and around and around) the notion that evil exists in us, and that we're not going to kill it. And that's a depressing thought, and a hard one to face. The plot of the story is even harder and more depressing in some ways, although always engrossing and entertaining. While hunting, Josh Brolin stumbles across the remains of a drug deal gone bad. Next to the bodies of evil men, he picks up a satchel full of cash. It's a lot of money, but it's also a death sentence for him the moment he lifts it off the ground. The drug lords are not about to let that money get away.

They call in Javier Bardem, a hitman or sorts. Bardem is (bluntly) one of the creepier bad guys in movie history. He's passionless, purely evil. He's full of his own strange convictions of what's right and wrong, and he's true to those convictions. In a very, very abstract way, he is made of the same stuff as Muslim terrorists, and abortion clinic bombers.

For the next hour or so the film mainly shows us Bardem hunting down Brolin. The hitman keeps popping up like a killer in a slasher film, but it's all well explained and plausable. There are chases and an exciting gun fight (and that's 'exciting' in a heart-pounding bad way, not in a heart-pounding good way). The big gun fight is hardly the climax, however, thanks to some good writing. I won't ruin the ending for you. I won't tell you whether Brolin lives or dies, or what happens with Jones as the lawman hoping to save Brolin's life. I will say that what does happen is terrible, and very true to the story, and well worth seeing.

Standouts: Nearly everything. Story, acting, directing, pacing, editing, etc, etc, etc.

Blowouts: The only downside I can see is just how depressing the film is. There's isn't much more than a glimmer of hope peaking around the edges of this dark cloud.

Grade: A+