No Country for Old Men is a tense Coen brothers thriller based on Cormac McCarthy's novel, winning four Oscars and becoming one of 2008's strongest films. At the center is veteran Llewelyn Moss, who finds a suitcase of money and is drawn into a deadly chase, while the terrifying killer Anton Chigurh hunts him. The film grips with its realistic atmosphere, precise acting, and rare sense of relentless tension that lasts until the end.

No Country for Old Men (eng. No Country for Old Men) is a thriller directed by the Coen brothers, who also wrote the screenplay for this film based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. Out of 8 nominations for the 2008 Oscars, the film won 4 Academy Awards in the categories: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The film takes place in June 1980 and conveys the spirit of that time down to the smallest detail; everything looks quite realistic, I would say, ordinary. There is no sense that the story is contrived, and that is what draws you into the plot.
A voice-over from Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) tells about the changes taking place in the small town where he serves as the head of the local police. The sheriff is preparing for retirement; in principle, he is the only old man in this film, and by the end it will become clear why the film is called that.
Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam War veteran, finds a suitcase full of money, and the amount is considerable. A normal Russian after such a find would celebrate with friends in a bar or a club, depending on how big a scale they have, and think, here begins the good life, etc., but our hero behaves differently; conscience begins to torment him. As a result of these torments, the veteran creates problems for himself and goes on the run from those who want their money back.
The film’s pace does not let you relax; the speed of events suddenly increases or suddenly freezes, allowing you to feel the oppressive atmosphere. This is where the directors hook you: you begin to think like Llewelyn Moss and empathize with him.
The owner of the lost 2 million dollars hires the killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), who can get the money back for him. This Anton is not quite a normal person. He is simply a psychopath, with his own principles at work, but not the kind of principles that Leon the Killer has, of not killing children or women, but completely different ones, which probably only the psychopath himself could explain. Anton takes pleasure in his work; he can do it for free, and this adds to the film’s eeriness, and Javier Bardem’s character becomes a product of nature, like a hurricane, terrible and inevitable.
The oddity of the situation is that our veteran was involved in hunting and understands the whole nature of this activity; he makes attempts to turn from prey into hunter. Fighting nature is quite difficult; stopping a hurricane with a suitcase of money or treating Chigurh’s mental deviations with bullets is not exactly effective. It is very hard to describe the confrontation between the two characters; the scales tilt now one way, now the other, but this is precisely the psychological element that creates tension and the desire to find out what will happen next. Of course, the veteran does not give the impression of being a victim, and he himself understands that on the battlefield he is probably worth several men, but the situation forces him to act within the role of a thief who cannot fight in the open field. And Chigurh’s confidence in the inevitability of the punishment he brings gives him an aura of universal evil; I think such a character could easily stand on his own in a separate film, and quite well too (for example: Chigurh vs. Bourne). The actors perform very well in the film, conveying the characters of their heroes so vividly that I catch myself forgetting that I am watching a film. There are no blunders or inaccuracies; everything is precise and connected, and it watches in one breath.
The film’s development comes unexpectedly; after it ended, I had the impression that I had missed something, but nothing of the sort—everything is like in life: one day ends and another begins. There is no understatement in this film; everything is simple, and that is why it gives the impression that something has been missed. How the authors of the film achieved this is hard for me to explain, but one of the most interesting moments is how, in the finale, fate gives the sheriff a chance to get hold of 2 million, and he lets it slip away—perhaps because old men have no place here?!
Did you know?
…Joel and Ethan Coen not only served as the film’s producers, screenwriters, and directors, but also edited it themselves. However, the credits list their shared pseudonym, Roderick Jaynes.
…The city of Odessa, to which Carla Jean Moss flees in the plot, is not in Ukraine at all. In fact, it refers to the namesake town with a population of 78,000 in the southern United States (Texas).
…Unlike many films based on books, most of the events in the film unfold in the same sequence as in the book.
…The Coens like to reference one of their favorite directors, Stanley Kubrick. Thus, a motel room numbered 114 appears in the film; this number repeatedly appeared in Kubrick’s films as well.
…The Coen brothers tried to preserve not only the spirit but also the letter of the novel—most of the dialogues and monologues in the film, in particular Sheriff Bell’s final speech, repeat the book’s dialogues and monologues word for word.
…The pharmacy near which Chigurh blows up a parked car on the street is called “Mike Zoss Pharmacy.” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen spent a lot of time as children in a pharmacy of the same name in Minneapolis. Their own film company is also called “Mike Zoss Productions.”
…The Coen brothers turned down Josh Brolin for auditions for the film. So Josh asked Robert Rodriguez to help him record an audition for the role. Josh’s audition was shot on a $950,000 camera, with Robert Rodriguez behind the camera, and Quentin Tarantino directing the shoot.