“There are no clean getaways” – no truer is this phrase than in No Country For Old Men. Adapted from the 2005 novel written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy, this extraordinary film is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and is part western, part thriller, and is relentlessly violent.
Set in the desert landscape of 1980’s West Texas, welder and Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is out hunting when he comes upon the corpses of several Mexican drug runners and their vehicles. It’s the scene of a drug deal gone tragically wrong, and Moss finds two million dollars in a satchel near the massacre. Rather than reporting the incident to the police, Moss takes the money and drives back to his trailer and wife, Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald). Feeling unsafe, Moss sends his wife off to Odessa while he travels separately with the money.
Two million dollars going missing is bound to raise alarm bells, and it’s not long before people are sent out to retrieve the lost funds. One of those people is deadpan sociopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who not only has a funny haircut but a slaughterer’s gun. Chigurh is a dispassionate killer who leaves behind dead bodies wherever he goes, and after some investigating, tracks Moss down to a room at a motel. Chigurh also finds three Mexicans after the same prize and kills them with a silenced shotgun. In the meantime, Moss makes an escape with the money. The chase is on.
More details after the jump.