Written by: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (screenplay), Cormac McCarthy (novel)
Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
A hunter stumbles across a drug deal gone wrong.
Verdict
This is a phenomenal movie. The characters are clever, the story engrossing, and the dialog, while sparse, is perfect. It's based on the McCarthy book and he is master at crafting stories. Combine that with the Coen brothers and you get a spectacular movie.
Watch It.
Review
This has a great opening with the creepy Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, who won Best Supporting Oscar for the role) getting pulled over by a police officer. His weapon of choice is a captive bolt pistol, which is a type of stun gun typically used on livestock.
The plot begins when Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a drug deal gone wrong in the desert. This happens by chance as he sees a bleeding dog and decides to investigate. I was surprised at how calm he was upon seeing the gruesome results of the shootout, but this is set in 1980, just a few years after Vietnam. Something I hadn't noticed in previous viewings is that the sheriff makes a reference that he and Moss had seen conflict.
The movie uses silence to great effect. It's based on Cormac McCarthy's book by the same name. McCarthy is an amazing author and his book The Road was also turned into a film by the same name. This movie is extremely faithful to the book, though many parts were cut to trim down the length.
McCarthy creates very smart characters. Moss predicts what's going to happen when he's caught up in the conflict, and despite knowing what will happen, he can't avoid it. So many movies have characters make stupid decisions that land them in trouble, but this has Moss make smart decisions, or at least the best decisions possible, to no avail.
The movie is heavy with tension and suspense and we get an insight into Anton Chigurgh and how blase he is when he's willing to kill someone over the flip of a coin. Chigurh ascribes it to chance, but he's the one in control of his actions.
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| Javier Bardem plays Anton Chigurh |
Stumbling across the shootout doesn't land Moss in trouble, it's when he goes back to the scene "fixing to do something dumb" as he tells his wife. His conscious got him in trouble, and if he never went back he could have avoided the resulting conflict. Greed wasn't his downfall, it was being a nice guy or trying to make amends.
The movie doesn't hold your hand by explaining anything. You have to pay attention. When Chigurh searches Moss's trailer, he doesn't state well I guess they left. We see the trailer through his eyes and are expected to realize that.
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| Josh Brolin plays Lleweyn Moss |
The Coen brothers make amazing films from serious to comedic. They are immensely skilled and this movie may best showcase that. Every shot looks amazing.
The plot themes revolve around chance and being unable to stop what's coming. A confluence of events lands Moss in this predicament. It's by chance Chigurh found him. How much of destiny is chance and how much of it is actions one take? It's a little bit of both. You can't make a situation happen, but you can control what you do when the situation happens to you.
The shootout in this movie is low key but devastating. It's amazing how much the Coen brothers do without relying on over the top explosions and exposition. This is an action movie, but above and beyond anything I've seen. I can't help but mention Chigurgh's silenced shotgun. The props department fabricated the silencer as such a thing doesn't exist, and even if it did, it wouldn't be able to muffle the sound to such agree, but it's just cool. It's a great, yet brutal shoot out.
This movie won Oscars for best directing, adapted screenplay, and best picture.
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