No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 neo-western/thriller directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. This bleak, nihilistic tale tells a story of morality, causality, and the inevitability of death. One day while hunting, Llewelyn Moss finds the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong: most of the gang members dead and a briefcase containing 2 Million dollars. The only survivor begs Llewelyn for water, but he ignores him and leaves with the money. That night, haunted by guilt, he returns to the scene to deliver water to the dying man, only to find out that he's already dead. This simple act of consciousness leads to his downfall, as it alerts the ruthless assassin Anton Chigurh (who is looking for the money) of his existence and things start to spiral into chaos. In the middle of all this is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who is trying to make sense of all the mess and come to terms with the world changing around him.

This Coen Brothers masterpiece is a complex examination of themes such as death, chance, and free will. Llewelyn's story begins with a choice, an immoral one: taking the money that doesn't belong to him and leaving a man to die. It is, however, his next choice, the moral and righteous one, which seals his fate. He could have taken the money and left with his wife Carla Jean without looking back, he would have been saved from everything that unfolds. Later on, we see another instance in which a perceivably moral choice leads to negative results for him. Llewelyn fights, stands his ground, and keeps true to his moral code, but in the end is this what dooms him.

Anton Chigurh, played excellently by Javier Bardem, has been considered by some to be an embodiment of death. He is ruthless, he is unstoppable, he is unforgiven. He has a definite moral code, as twisted as it may appear, and fancies himself as an agent of chance. He carries a coin with which he decides the fate of his victims. For him, free will is just an illusion, fate brings the coin and decides over a person's life, he just executes fate's will. His nihilistic worldview is shown through his actions, his value of human life reflected on how he uses a captive bolt pistol as his weapon of choice: to him, humans are nothing more than cattle to be put down.

The third player of this twisted game is Ed Tom Bell, an old fashioned Sheriff who starts following Chigurh's body trail. He is from an era in which everything was simpler, crime included. He faces the current state of the world and can't help but wonder, how did everything turn up to be this way? The path of death he witnesses shakes the foundations of his world. He longs for a time that never was, and as he comes to terms with the fact that reality isn't as he thought he was, as he dreams of his dead father and faces the possibility of his own mortality, Ed Tom Bell realizes what kind of country he is in.

As these three men cross paths, lots of questions with no easy answers are brought up. The Coens' masterful direction, Roger Deakins bleak and gritty cinematography, the story developed by McCarthy and the performances from its entire cast make this a very thrilling ride. A desolated setting, a man on the run, another man chasing him, another man trying to figure things out, violence. Bardem's performance as the chilling Chigurh is one for the ages; he is ruthless, he is unstoppable, he is unforgiven, just like time itself. Ed Tom Bell reflects throughout the movie about how times change, about how he, the old guard, is left behind because of this. It is no country for old men, as many of its characters soon realize. It is a film about morality, about choice, about chance, about death, but mostly, it is a film about the inevitability of the passage of time.