No Country For Old Men

I don't usually write movie reviews but every once in a while one sticks with you that needs its demons exorcised - this would be one of them. No Country for Old Men makes no indifference to good old-fashioned psychopathology following people.

I'd actually never heard of this movie...where have I been? Released in 2007 (a long period in life when I was in meditation and didn't watch TV or movies). The absolute best performances of a terrifying storyline: Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald, Garret Dillahunt, Tess Harper, Rodger Boyce, and many others define the experience of what not to do if you come across a couple million dollars just laying around.

A man out hunting sheep, if you call shooting at them from the side of a highway "hunting," notices a truck in the distance that he just has to check out. Walking into a scene of dead bodies and a truck loaded with drugs, he follows the trail to a corpse with a black case filled with two million dollars in cash. If he'd thought to just take the cash and run and leave the case behind there would be no story but Lewelyn Moss, decides to take the case that happens to be bugged and all with a Homing Beacon.

Parallel to this is a killer, Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh who kills everything in sight as if he is on a mission. Basically, covering his tracks so that anyone that has even seen him anywhere will never live to speak about it. His acting will have you riveted to your seat - don't forget to breathe. Obviously, he is a hired hitman who is looking for the money, who hired him is not clear. That suggestion is there or he would not know who the businessman is that funded the project and since he knows he has to go too, in the killer's mind.

Quick thinking Moss acting on instinct gets his wife, Carla Jean, out of town with a plan, once he is able to tell for sure if he is followed and shakes him, not realizing the insanity of it all and the breadth of a killer's steps. The Mob or part of the gang (is there a difference? I don't know), soon appears to follow her in case she has the money or at least some of it.

How the members following them communicate in a time prior to digital is a mystery as the movie takes place in the 1980s. This is actually a strength to the movie leaving the viewer with a sense of helplessness for not knowing every detail to catch the killer. This movie draws on that power, unlike a mystery that shows every step of figuring the characters out.

Tommy Lee Jones is classic in his portrayal of a Sherrif on the killer's trail and a moment too late. There is one chilling scene where they almost butt heads.

Everyone is out for the money now but they don't stand a chance with Anton having a primal instinct and blood lust who is there to get the money for himself. Throughout the movie the viewer may be championing the innocent thief and his wife as if they are heroes but stepping on crazy toes will rarely have a happy ending at least in the world of movies.

Without giving anything away the whole thing all I can say is watch it. See for yourself the brutal reality of debts gone wrong. From gritty characters to innocent victims, seedy hotel rooms that spell out the trail, and horror in a non-thriller type of way. It will scare the bejesus out of ya.