No Movie for Weak Hearts

Or the squeamish. Or those who want redemption and happy endings and upbeat music playing over the end credits. You’ll get none of that from No Country for Old Men, the movie that everyone except me thinks is the second coming. I definitely liked this movie and I can appreciate its greatness as a movie independent from how much I actually enjoyed it. But I think No Country suffered a little bit from all the raves I read and testimonials I heard before actually seeing it myself.

The film is both small and epic at the same time. On its surface the movie is focused on the pursuit of one criminal by another. One, played by Josh Brolin, is a thief by circumstance: he was presented with an easy opportunity to grab a whole shitload of cash, and he took it. He shows no remorse about the stealing but does display true, if delayed, humanity. It’s that humanity that puts Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem as more monster than man, on his trail. The violence caused by these two men in their lust for money and a macho pride in winning carries the movie for the next two hours.

The film opens with the most gruesomely displayed death. Subsequent killings are shown with less detail and eventually we begin seeing only the aftermath of murder, and then, finally, only the suggestion of it. It’s a brilliant commentary on our own desensitization to violence and the characters’ they-can-only-hang-you-once mentality, with each crime mattering a little less than the last.

Tommy Lee Jones, in the movie’s most affecting performance, plays a small town sheriff quietly trying to enact justice amidst all the havoc. He alone of the three leads prompted any true feeling from me during the movie. Throughout I was captivated, yes, disgusted (both at the characters’ characters and the gore) and compelled to keep watching. At none of the many, many deaths did I tear up or feel my heart strings tugged, though. Intentionally or not, the filmmakers held me at a distance throughout the entire movie.

The film’s bigger picture, of course, presents a dismal world view: people are selfish, happy to hurt others for their own gain, and mostly get away with it. There are hints of hope to be found in this movie, but they are few and far between. Having not read Cormac McCarthy’s book on which the movie is based (All the Pretty Horses was enough McCarthy for me, thank you very much), I’m not sure if this perspective is solely his world view or a combination of his own pessimism married to that of the Coen brothers, who wrote and directed the movie. Either way, I left the theatre impressed but not moved. No Country for Old Men is worth seeing, but I can’t say it will change your life.