Film Review: No Country for Old Men

[C_Borromeo]

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Hey, guys. I'm sort of a film reviewer right now. I'm doing it semi-regularly (or for however long they want to keep me) over at Sunstar.

Here's the review, do visit the link, or grab a copy, and let me know what you guys think.



http://www.sunstar.com.ph/weekend/04...08/silver.html

silver screen

No Country for Old Men
Carlo Borromeo

Sheriff Bell: Tommy Lee Jones
Llewelyn Moss: Josh Brolin
Anton Chigurh: Javier Bardem

Written and directed by Ethan and Joel Coen.
Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy.

They say a film is only as good as its villain is bad. “No Country For Old Men” won an Oscar for Best Picture. That at least gives you some indication of the evil that is Anton Chigurh.

At the recently concluded Oscars, No Country for Old Men won a heap of awards. It also won recognition from various critic circles and guilds. But what I look forward to will be this year’s MTV Movie Awards, which is the only awards show in the US that has a category called “Best Villain.”

Anton Chigurh is one of three characters whose paths interweave when a drug deal goes wrong. The other is Llewelyn Moss, a man who stumbles upon a bag containing $2 million, and Tom Bell is the sheriff trying to make sense of the resulting carnage. Chigurh is the man hired to recover the bag with the money, but his employer quickly discovers that he may have made the wrong choice when he leaves a trail of dead bodies in his wake.

TO READ MORE, PLEASE VISIT http://www.sunstar.com.ph/weekend/04...08/silver.html

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[BertR]

I read your review in the previous issue of sunstar weekend...cool man...

But what's really interesting for me with this movie was how unusual filmmaking this is; and how it stayed away from the usual formulaic stories that Hollywood is regurgitating. Even basing from previous Coens' movies, this is a bit unusual still. For instance, the bummer ending (which I dare not speak and which most audience gets annoyed of) and how the story focuses on two characters (Chigurh and Moss) when in fact this is Sheriff Bell's story, hence the title.

The cinematography (by Roger Deakins) gorgeous and the "almost score-less" music (by Carter Burwell) added tension and highly complemented the whole movie by adding a realistic feel. Of course Bardem was awesome. They have created another unforgettable villain image. But for me a very underrated performance goes to JOSH BROLIN. I understood the dilemma, though, where should he be nominated for: Best Actor or Supporting Actor? . And then there's Tommy Lee Jones. Every time he appears on screen, he gives such a superbly heartbreaking performance you can't help but feel for him. Then you go back to the title again.

The whole movie is so subtle it's so difficult to discern what it is really trying to say. Add to this the great visuals and interesting characters -- one would definitely need to re-watch this masterpiece to see that beneath the violence the movie is portraying, there lies the ultimate submerged meaning about death, mortality, and how it's not gonna be easy living in a no country for old men.

For me this is their most profound movie so far (I haven't seen all Coens movies yet, but for me this is the best). And I think this profoundness is the main reason for them conquering the Oscars with 4 statuettes, after years of splendid moviemaking. At least we can now be assured Joel and Ethan will not live in the annals of filmmaking as how the Oscar-less (Director) Kubrick, Bergman, Kurosawa, and Hitchcock (to name a few) did as they showcased their brilliance while they lived.

[C_Borromeo]

The last Coen brother's movie I saw before "No Country" was Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?" and before that "The Big Lebowski." Both of which I found hilarious.

Yes, I too was surprised by how different it was from their previous work. Although "Fargo" was a crime movie as well, it wasn't as dark as "No Country."