Recommendation: 4/5 Stars  

The Cinephile’s Journey is an attempt to watch and review every film that has won The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oscar for Best Picture.  

Plot: “Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and over two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.” -IMBD 

Review: No Country for Old Men is about more than a drug deal gone horribly wrong. It is about more than the hunter who stole money that is not his or the killer attempting to get his money back, and the lawman investigating it all. Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, the theme of this film is a country in transition.  

Attempting to make the point of a country that is becoming more violent, less caring, and deeply cynical, the lawman at the center of this film, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), would have you believe we have not always been this way. Using the vast, violent, and unforgiving landscape of the wild and untamed countryside of Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, we learn from his privileged position this view may be true. I promise you American Indians, enslaved Africans, and countless immigrant groups know a different story, but that story lies elsewhere.  

All Ed Tom Bell knows is the crime before him. Over his long and storied career, he has watched the nature of crime change. Gone are the days of minor disagreements and neighborly disputes. With drugs invading his backyard and a shift in the public’s inclination toward escalated violence, there seems to be blood everywhere he looks.  

As we watch Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) pursue Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) from town to town, attempting to retake stolen money, the tension and bloodshed paints a picture truer to Bell’s belief than might be reality. As I watched this wonderfully written script unfold before me, I doubted the truth. Perhaps we are descending into a violent hellscape from which we will never recover. As Anton and Llewelyn get closer and closer to each other, the violence explodes, and even more death abounds. Standing in pools of red owed because of money and drugs, I almost fell victim to Bell’s cynicism.  

With the end of the pursuit, we realize that there really is no resolution to this story. America is constantly evolving. Its story is forever shifting because of a cast of characters all trying to make ends meet. We have always been a violent people. While statistics suggest we are living at the least violent point in human history, our collective consciousness tells us otherwise. We have always been prone to brutality, now we just know about it.  

Be good to each other,  

Nathan