no country fo old men

THE FLICK: Alfred Hitchcock, among his many cinematic talents, had a knack for elevating popular entertainment to high art. Joel and Ethan Coen have proven themselves adept at doing the exact opposite: turning art into popular entertainment. Working in the post-modern Hollywood universe, none of the Coen Brothers’ films are outrageously original; they seem to relish jumping into recognizable formulas (screwball comedy, film noir, etc) between more prestigious projects. But when they choose to bring their A-game, no filmmaker can match their ability craft “indie” ideas with mass audience appeal. Fargo announced their artistic arrival, but No Country For Old Men cemented their reputation. Leaning heavily on their previous set-in-Texas potboiler, Blood Simple, the Coens waste little time and even fewer words getting things started. Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon a pile of bodies and a stack of cash in the desert. Taking a calculated risk, he absconds with the money only to be pursued by a relentless psychotic hitman named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) whose weapon of choice is a suped-up air compressor. As the two play cat-and-mouse across the country, local lawman Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) stays one step behind, following the evidence and a trail of corpses left in their wake. Now the recipients of their second screenwriting Oscar, the Coens take a decidedly less-is-more approach in adapting Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Dialogue is doled out in small portions. Full sentences are often replaced by shrugs. Yet every word is a masterpiece in its stripped-down simplicity. And all that silence is emphasized by the absence of any musical score. It would be almost unbearably depressing if there weren’t those flashes of morbid wit peppered in just the right places (“That’s a dead dog.” “Yes, it is.”) which echo the more overt humor found past projects like Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy. Most filmmakers would find no humor in No Country’s grim psychological landscape; the Coen’s find it in every rest stop, hotel room and gas station along the way. The film is still a few degrees from perfect. After a white-knuckle two-act performance, things begin to slow considerably towards the conclusion. Many will argue that the Coen’s refusal to deliver the expected good vs. evil showdown is yet another aspect of their genius; a cinematic carrot, if you will, dangled in the face of the audience. That may be. No Country is more interested in the psychological closure of its story than a physical one. But that final cut to black is a rude interruption of the bloodlust that’s been building for two hours of screen time...and the last 20 years of the Coen’s career. THE FEATURES: Benefitting greatly from the Blu-ray spit’n polish, Roger Deakins photography is a vision of Western iconography: blood-red sunsets, acres of scrub brush and miles of neon signs. But beyond the visually pleasing transfer, No Country features a couple of special features from the notoriously “non-participating” Coen Brothers themselves. There’s no commentary, but we do get a 1⁄2 hour Making Of that shows the filmmakers at work in pre-production, on-location and interacting with the cast. It’s probably the most in-depth look at their modus operandi we’re likely to see. Working with the Coens (8 min) peeks behind the curtain a little more with questions posed to the cast and filmmakers themselves. Finally, Diary of a Country Sherriff looks at the character crafting skills of Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem.