No Country For Old Men (2007)

When I first heard of this movie, and when I first began watching it, it seemed like it would be a long, boring movie about men walking around. Well it was long, but boring not so much. What I came to realize is that, from my perspective, this is like the new form of western.

It almost has the same elements as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but re-imagined. There is The Good, in the form of an aging sheriff, The Bad, in the form of a psychopathic serial killer, and The Ugly, represented by some ne'er-do-well scavenger just looking to cash in.

The Sheriff Ed Tom, begins this story by explaining the title of the film. He says that he wonders how the 'Old Timers' would have reacted to the things people do today. How even the bad things done back in the day were done with a stronger sense of right and wrong, that there were more principles, the some sheriffs didn't even carry guns (for my purposes, compare The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to this movie). And to compound this point, the good-hearted sheriff in this movie seems to be left in the dust by the bad and the ugly. He can't seem to keep up with or understand them, almost as if they were from different worlds.

The Ugly, Llewelyn, is a scavenger by nature. He wanders around the desert looking for anything that will help him survive. The inciting moment in this story is when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong, and he tracks down the money. He is then sends his wife off to her mother, to protect her, and then goes on the run from whoever will be chasing after him to get this money.

Little does Llewelyn know, what's chasing him is a psychopathic serial killer, who would play the role of The Bad in my comparison. This is a man of many morals, but none of them inspiring him to do good. He ruthlessly tracks down the money, killing a slew of people randomly along the way. He's oddly principled though. For example, several times throughout the film he puts a person's life in the hands of fate, and will make them call a coin. If they pick the right side, he lets them live, but if not... then no. There is no ill emotion in his actions however. He acts almost as though he's following some supernatural instruction, and is almost disconnected from what he's doing.

The movie is about one man running from another man, and a third man bringing up the rear trying to find one or both of the first two, and yet, none of these three characters ever actually come face to face with each other. It's kind of slow-paced and there is a lack of dialogue at times, but it is a thoughtful film. There is a battle of wits at play here. Llewelyn and the man hunting him are always trying to stay one step ahead of the other, trying to guess the other man's next move, for if (or when) they interact, it's a fight to the death. The sheriff bringing up the rear plays the role of bearing witness more than he interacts with these men on the intellectual battlefield, but at the beginning of the film, even he shows some powers of deduction as he surveys the deadly drug deal. His mentality is spent more in presenting to the audience the idea that times have changed. Even though it isn't the most action-packed movie ever made, it still is intense once you get into it. It's suspenseful and interesting, but more for the ideas it presents rather than for the 'action'. Maybe the reason this movie gets the 'slow' label is because people think that it will be an action movie, and are then disappointed by the lack of 'action'. If you get past that though, there's something here to be appreciated that is making an important statement. Pretty good.