by Daniel Johnson

Created on: November 22, 2007

A more faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel could not be imagined. There are a few transitional dialogue and setting embellishments but the bulk of this film is directly, word for word, from the book. In the vast plains of Rio Grande Texas in 1980, Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss - a poor a Vietnam vet who one day when out hunting antelopes comes across a slew of dead bodies, a large surplus of heroin, and a satchel containing over 2 million dollars. He takes the satchel and returns to his wife at his trailer park home but wakes in the middle of the night with what he himself recognizes as a "dumber than Hell" compulsion to return to the crime scene. Soon to be on his trail is what can only be described as a completely evil man - Chirgurh (Javier Bardem). With an odd Prince Valiant-style haircut and a never ceasing confidence, Chirgurh uses a cattle gun to kill many people throughout the film (usually through the forehead) and it also comes in handy to blow out door locks. "What is this guy supposed to be, the ultimate bad-ass?" - Moss even asks Carson Wells (a smooth Woody Harrelson) - yet another man on the trail of the money.

As Sherriff Bell and a sort of narrator in his grizzled though still whimsical monologues Tommy Lee Jones tries to make sense of these new violent times. He never appears surprised by each new bloody development - he takes it all in with a jaded shrugging sigh. Though many of the stylistic devices have been used and reused by the Coen Brothers before (the roadside murders, the seedy hotels, etc.) amidst the shoot-outs, chases and scary darkness there are waves of fresh subtleties that they hadn't explored before. The quirky everyday folk that reside in little general stores out in the middle of nowhere might have provoked ridicule before in such Coen classics as RAISING ARIZONA, FARGO, and O BROTHER but this time out I found the audience around me were tittering around - almost afraid to laugh at these people. Like Chirgurgh - who one character refers to as a man "without a sense of humor" seems to know all too well is that their fates, whether by his hands or by natural destiny, aren't that funny.

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