Where are the winners?

by RICHARD JONES

IF you're a Coen brothers fan like me you're going to love the quirkiness of their latest epic movie No Country For Old Men.

Set in the rocky, desert country of west Texas the Coens' film delivers us three main characters.

Vietnam veteran Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a killing field one day while he's out hunting deer.

He's found a drug deal gone wrong. There are dead bodies everywhere and underneath the sole tree in the landscape he discovers a $2 million cache cradled by another dead dealer. Moss takes off with the booty, but there's a catch. The drug overlords dispatch psychotic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) to recover their money.

Anton is virtually unstoppable. Armed with a compressed air cylinder that powers a cattle stun gun, as well as conventional firearms, he wipes out anyone standing between himself and his hapless quarry.

Into the mix topples county sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), on the cusp of retirement and a lawman of the old order.

He, too, visits the killing field - on horseback, with his sheriff's department partner - and from then on the destinies of the three men are inexorably intertwined.

Moss is chased across the state by Anton. Sheriff Ed Tom also follows the trail of blood and with the Coen brothers at the directorial controls we're never too sure if anyone is actually going to win out.

Footnote: the Coen Brothers scooped the pool at the 2008 Oscars. Not only did Ethan and Joel take out the Best Director award - one statuette each - but No Country For Old Me was voted the Top Film. And scary Javier Bardem, in his Anton Chigurh incarnation, took the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

3 March 2008

If you'd like to comment on this story email us and we'll put your contribution on our new-look letters & comments page.

Disclaimer