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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 17 January 2008

Josh Brolin accidentally stumbles across a fortune

Oscar award will make this a golden oldie

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Directed by JOEL AND ETHAN COEN
Certificate 15

STRANGE title, but that’s the way it goes with the off-the-wall film-making team of brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.
Their latest is a crime caper centred on the aftermath of a drugs deal that goes disastrously wrong.
Josh Brolin is in the wrong place at the wrong time in a remote corner of Texas when he stumbles on a load of slaughtered bodies from a drugs war, along with two million dollars in a leather bag. He makes off with it in the hope of a better life for himself and his young wife (Kelly Macdonald).
But there’s a psychopathic mobster on his tail (Javier Bardem) who wants the money for himself, and will kill anyone in his way. Only world-weary sheriff Tommy Lee Jones can save the day.
Set in Texas against an endless sun-baked vista of scrub and mountains, this superbly structured thriller slides through small towns and cheap motels like a deadly snake – and when the violence comes it lifts you out of your seat with the shockwaves. Every frame is guaranteed to set your nerves jangling.
The pasty-faced villain is a ghost materialising from nowhere to wreak havoc on the community, tossing a coin to taunt his terrified victims. “Heads or tails? This is the best I can do!” he says quietly. If they call correctly, they live. If not…
The dialogue is minimal, barely enough to fill a dozen pages of a screenplay, but hugely effective.
As for Tommy Lee Jones, an actor who never lets us down, as a lawman of few words and a face hewn from granite, he expresses more with one sideways flicker of his eyes than a whole speech, commanding the screen as the action surges to a climax. Bardem joins the hall of infamy as one of the most truly frightening villains I’ve ever seen stalking a screen.
This saga of crime and retribution is being strongly tipped for a host of Oscars next month. Speaking personally, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

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