Movie Review - No Country for Old Men (2007)

No Country for Old Men

Winning an Academy Award for Best Picture is a big deal, and when it comes to me, that's when I'm at my most skeptical. No Country is one such movie. I had heard all sorts of stuff about it from various different people and quite honestly wasn't impressed by the premise: a movie set in the 1980's boonies of Texas, which probably aren't much different nowadays anyway. As much as I wanted to run against the wind, I was unashamedly impressed by this movie.

The basic premise for the movie is as follows: Guy 1 finds Guy 2's money, Guy 2 wants to kill Guy 1 for his money, and Guy 1 tries to escape, all in the setting of the desolate West Texas and Mexico. One of the things I noticed as I was watching is the lack of a soundtrack in the film. There are very few moments where music can be heard, and when it can be heard, it's only very faintly in the background. This, however, helps capture the silence and loneliness of the West Texas setting very well, along with a cast of pretty colorful minor characters that certainly seem to have been born and raised in Texas. The villain in this movie, played by Javier Bardem, is a pretty ugly guy and is certainly one of the more unlikeable movie villains I've ever seen with his relentless brutality and propensity to escape. If you've never seen a Coen Brothers movie (this is one of them), you should know that they are known for their quirkiness, off-the-wall and dark humor, and even shock value in many cases. If you've ever seen Fargo or Burn After Reading, you know what I'm talking about (WARNING: links contain violence!). As a thriller, this movie functions very well, and the ending is certainly very different and one that might even leave you frustrated, but not in a bad way, necessarily.

So, as a freshman college student, even I enjoyed watching this. It's right at about two hours and it's pretty simple to follow, already setting it apart from many other Academy Award winners. I would highly recommend this if you like thrillers or are a fan of the Coen Brothers.