Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #95 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-03-11
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.com
The Coen brothers make their finest thriller since Fargo with a restrained adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. Not that there aren't moments of intense violence, but No Country for Old Men is their quietest, most existential film yet. In this modern-day Western, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet who could use a break. One morning while hunting antelope, he spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies (both human and canine). In examining the site, he finds a case filled with $2 million. Moss takes it with him, tells his wife (Kelly Macdonald) he's going away for awhile, and hits the road until he can determine his next move. On the way from El Paso to Mexico, he discovers he's being followed by ex-special ops agent Chigurh (an eerily calm Javier Bardem). Chigurh's weapon of choice is a cattle gun, and he uses it on everyone who gets in his way--or loses a coin toss (as far as he's concerned, bad luck is grounds for death). Just as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a World War II vet, is on Moss's trail, Chigurh's former colleague, Wells (Woody Harrelson), is on his. For most of the movie, Moss remains one step ahead of his nemesis. Both men are clever and resourceful--except Moss has a conscience, Chigurh does not (he is, as McCarthy puts it, "a prophet of destruction"). At times, the film plays like an old horror movie, with Chigurh as its lumbering Frankenstein monster. Like the taciturn terminator, No Country for Old Men doesn't move quickly, but the tension never dissipates. This minimalist masterwork represents Joel and Ethan Coen and their entire cast, particularly Brolin and Jones, at the peak of their powers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

Too bad about the ending
I was so disgusted by the ending of this movie that I ordered the Cormac McCarthy novel and read it. -- In the movie, we see the sheriff looking down at a body in the morgue. In the book it is made clear that this is Moss's body. In the movie Chigurh is waiting for Moss's wife when she comes back from her mother's funeral and asks her to flip a coin to see whether she lives or dies. In the book we see him shoot her.
In both the movie and the book we don't see Chigurh after his car accident. In the book, the accident is followed by a long lucubration in italics which is extremely boring. The end of the movie you know: the movie drops the characters and the story and says THE END. -- For a man, the movie is enjoyable to watch until the awful ending. Men like action, men like violence. I don't imagine many women would like it.
The best I can say is that the Coen brothers made a watchable movie, avoiding their many bad habits. The movie is actually pointed at the viewer with the intention of gripping and entertaining, by comparison with the accustomed onanistic solipsism of the Coens. -- I did admire Chigurh's two philosophical remarks about the coins to be flipped. "The coin is from 1958; it took 22 years to get here." And later, to Moss's wife, "The coin got here the same way I did." I don't remember these lines from the book.

No Country For All Men
This film was a surprise to me. First, I enjoyed other Coen films like Big Lebowski and Fargo but this had me re-examining those movies because of how great it was. It follows the story of three characters whose lives have been interwoven due to a botched drug deal which the viewer is only given a view of in the aftermath. You have the traditional good guy in Tommy Lee Jones trying to do what is best for the world, the non-traditional good guy in Josh Brolin who is trying to do what is best for himself, and the bad guy played by Javier Bardem whose performance was more than deserving for best supporting actor. This movie trumps There Will Be Blood only because it has three fantastic characters telling the story instead of one fantastic character in Daniel Plainview. It was a treat to help myself to Daniel Day-Lewis's performance, but it was three times the treat to watch this film. No Country For Old Men is one of those movies that hits every note right and if you don't like this film, your probably don't like many movies. The Blu-ray is a must buy for anyone who enjoyed this or any film.

Thought Provoking
I don't love this movie, but I don't hate it either. I came away from
it kind of puzzled and was grateful for some of the reviews posted,
as they clarified quite a few oversights and misunderstandings I had
about the film when I watched it.

The film is somewhat violent, but in no way did I find the killing
gratuitous or out of context. To me, gratuitous violence is the gory,
blood-drenched, voyeuristic killing you see in slasher and snuff films.
As for the movie's plot, I thought the story was straightforward enough
and has been summarized here adequately by other reviewers. I did not
read the book the film was based on, so can't answer to how true the
film stayed to its origins. What I found most complex about the film was
its characters, and of course, the film's hotly contested ending.

It seems Americans, for the most part, like seeing movies that are easy to
digest and have tidy endings. You're not going to get either of these when
you watch this film. Of the Coen movies, I'm guessing the reason Fargo
received such a positive response (I personally love the film) was due to,
among other things, the presence of characters with well-defined moral
boundaries and a "justice served" type of ending.

In "No Country For Old Men," the world view of the characters and the moral
codes they abide by are not simple to define. In Llewelyn Moss, you have a
man stupid enough to steal drug money, compassionate enough to take a drug
runner a jug of water, loyal enough to tell a pool-side prostitute he's married,
and power-hungry enough to sell his wife out to the assassin on his trail. By
the end of the movie, it's not even about the money for him anymore. He's
seduced by the chase, which ends in tragic consequences. For all intents, I
thought Javier Bardem does an excellent job as the sociopathic killer---accent,
bowl hair cut, and all. The fact that Anton Chigurh lives by his own twisted
"code" when it comes to his victims makes his character all the more chilling and
intense. The most complex character by far, however, is the sheriff played by
Tommy Lee Jones. A man trapped in the past glory days of law enforcement when
capturing bad guys was a lot simpler, Sheriff Bell cannot wrap his tired, old brain
around the likes of criminals like Anton Chigurh. For me, his apathy and denial
(he queries at one point if Anton Chigurh is real or just a ghost) signals one of the
film's subtler moral dilemmas. One of the most powerful scenes in the film---and
one I can't quite make sense of---is when Bell enters the last crime scene and
Chigurh is hiding behind the door. That scene sums up the moral ambiguity that the
Coens seem to be going for. What's worse? Monsters at large or the society unable to
harness them, for whatever reason? For me, the end of the film helps to answer this
very question.

Overall, I found it to be a very thought-provoking piece. I would need to see it once
or twice again, just to get in the dialogue, as I had a difficult time understanding the
Texas drawls of the characters at times. I'm giving this movie three stars due to the
quality acting and the fact that it really makes you think about what you've seen
rather than just take part as a passive observer.