No Country for Old Men
Directors: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Writers: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (screenplay) and Cormac McCarthy (novel)
No Country for Old Men is an allegorical tale of the U.S., not just Texas, where it is geographically located. The story is an adaptation of a novel by Cormac McCarthy and is about what the changes that have taken have meant. As the sheriff’s (Tommy Lee Jones) preamble that opens the movie says, “The young can’t help but compare themselves to the old-timers.” The story is about a young hunter (Josh Brolin) who finds the bodies of several dead Mexicans and finds a case with $2 million dollars and a truck loaded with drugs. It is clear that a drug buy went bad and the bodies are the result. The hunter takes the money, but feels guilty because he did not bury the bodies and returns. Other members of the drug gang who have discovered the bodies and missing money, run into the hunter and pursue him and eventually his wife (Kelly Macdonald) to recover their money.
One of the gang, Anton Chigurth (unforgettably portrayed by Javier Bardem), is a psychopathic killer dressed in black, who leaves a trail of dead rivals (Woody Harrelson) and innocent bystanders in pursuit of the money. The killer in black, using a nail gun, a tool designed for building, to gruesomely murder his victims, represents the evil of modern times brought about by things like drugs dealing. The sheriff is also tracking the hunter to try and protect him and his wife and recover the money, proves to be ineffectual. The authorities are helpless; and the sheriff, in whom the hunter and his wife have placed their hope, fails and is killed. The hunter and wife represented innocents who were are primarily concerned about their own lives until they have a chance to make money from the evil. In the end, they are destroyed by the evil they should have been fighting.
This is very violent movie, but the violence may have been necessary to represent what this country has become. If so, then the U.S. is even more disturbing than the violence in this movie.
Directors: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
Writers: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (screenplay) and Cormac McCarthy (novel)
No Country for Old Men is an allegorical tale of the U.S., not just Texas, where it is geographically located. The story is an adaptation of a novel by Cormac McCarthy and is about what the changes that have taken have meant. As the sheriff’s (Tommy Lee Jones) preamble that opens the movie says, “The young can’t help but compare themselves to the old-timers.” The story is about a young hunter (Josh Brolin) who finds the bodies of several dead Mexicans and finds a case with $2 million dollars and a truck loaded with drugs. It is clear that a drug buy went bad and the bodies are the result. The hunter takes the money, but feels guilty because he did not bury the bodies and returns. Other members of the drug gang who have discovered the bodies and missing money, run into the hunter and pursue him and eventually his wife (Kelly Macdonald) to recover their money.
One of the gang, Anton Chigurth (unforgettably portrayed by Javier Bardem), is a psychopathic killer dressed in black, who leaves a trail of dead rivals (Woody Harrelson) and innocent bystanders in pursuit of the money. The killer in black, using a nail gun, a tool designed for building, to gruesomely murder his victims, represents the evil of modern times brought about by things like drugs dealing. The sheriff is also tracking the hunter to try and protect him and his wife and recover the money, proves to be ineffectual. The authorities are helpless; and the sheriff, in whom the hunter and his wife have placed their hope, fails and is killed. The hunter and wife represented innocents who were are primarily concerned about their own lives until they have a chance to make money from the evil. In the end, they are destroyed by the evil they should have been fighting.
This is very violent movie, but the violence may have been necessary to represent what this country has become. If so, then the U.S. is even more disturbing than the violence in this movie.