William Murphy Mi Zene, Catholic University School, Dublin.
BACK IN 2005 many Coen brothers' fans were distraught. Their favourite writer/directors had lost their touch. After three years in hiding the brothers have finally come back with a big bang.
No Country For Old Menbegins with Tommy Lee Jones's flat, confiding voice delivering a story of how he sent a young boy to the chair for killing his 14-year old girlfriend.
"The papers called it a crime of passion, but he told me there weren't nothing passionate about it. He said he been fixin' to kill someone for as long as he could remember. Sid, if I let him out he'd kill somebody again."
Enter Anton Chigruh, a 6ft-tall, slouching man with a pudding- bowl haircut and a devious smile. He sole purpose in life is to kill people with a cattle stun gun and a silenced shotgun.
Anton Chigruh is probably the greatest villain the Coens have produced. He is the most recent in their long line of unstoppably evil characters. Anton is a psychopath in every sense of the word. He is silent, but deadly and he will kill anybodywho inconveniences him in the slightest (or leave it up to a coin toss).
Playing Chigruh, Javier Bardem owns the screen. Every scene he is in we are transfixed on his voice. This sort of Spanish/ English mix (like Werner Herzog's, except Spanish) which is so deep and so sinister it is almost like listening to the devil himself.
Josh Brolin (who you may recognise from American Gangster, Planet Terrorand the best kid's film ever, The Goonies) delivers a performance which one would not expect from an actor who was washed-up several years ago. He is very interesting as our morally ambiguous hero.
Tommy Lee Jones should, from now on, only play world-weary Texans. Want more proof? Check out The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada. His voice and expressions give us this thoroughly believable character who can't comprehend the ever-increasing violence that is destroying the clean and innocent world around him.
Visually, the film is probably the best thing that Roger Deakins, the cinematographer, has ever shot. The shots of the bleak and empty Texas desert add to the film so much. Notably in this film Moss, Bell or Chigruh never appear in the same frame.
They are always within eyeshot of each other but never share a frame.
The themes explored are nothing new for the Coens. Fate and circumstance were explored just as well in Fargo. However, this is the single greatest film the Coens have produced. It is smart, funny and terrifying with electrifying performances from all the cast.
