No Country for Old Men (2007)

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.

Directors:

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Writers:

Joel Coen (screenplay), Ethan Coen (screenplay),

Stars:

Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin

Top 250 #169 | Won 4 Oscars. Another 159 wins & 88 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tommy Lee Jones	...	Ed Tom Bell
Javier Bardem	...	Anton Chigurh
Josh Brolin	...	Llewelyn Moss
Woody Harrelson	...	Carson Wells
Kelly Macdonald	...	Carla Jean Moss
Garret Dillahunt	...	Wendell
Tess Harper	...	Loretta Bell
Barry Corbin	...	Ellis
Stephen Root	...	Man who hires Wells
Rodger Boyce	...	El Paso Sheriff
Beth Grant	...	Carla Jean's Mother
Ana Reeder	...	Poolside Woman
Kit Gwin	...	Sheriff Bell's Secretary
Zach Hopkins	...	Strangled Deputy
Chip Love	...	Man in Ford

Storyline

In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart.

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Plot Keywords:

coin toss | based on novel | money | killer | drug deal | 

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Taglines:

You've never been anywhere like No Country

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

18A

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

21 November 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Non, ce pays n'est pas pour le vieil homme

Filming Locations:

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,257,183 (UK) (18 January 2008)

Gross:

$74,273,505 (USA) (4 April 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Vantage, Miramax, Scott Rudin Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

122 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

While on location in Marfa, Texas, There Will Be Blood (2007) was shooting nearby. One day, while filming a wide shot of the landscape, directors Joel Coen and Ethan Coen had to halt shooting for the day when a gigantic cloud of dark smoke floated conspicuously into view. Paul Thomas Anderson was testing the pyrotechnics of an oil derrick set ablaze on the set of his film. The Coens resumed filming the next day, when the smoke finally dissipated. A year and a half later, both films were the leading contenders at the Academy Awards.

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Goofs

During the shot of Sheriff Bell's reflection on the TV in Llewelyn's home, you can see at the far right corner of the television the reflection of three crew members.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Ed Tom Bell: I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about ...

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Connections

Referenced in No Corner for Old Mime (2008)

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Soundtracks

Blood Trails
(uncredited)
Written by Carter Burwell

User Reviews

Expect the Unexpected as the Coen's deliver a pneumatic jolt to the head

There's very little "good" in No Country for Old Men beyond the mesmerizing acting and viciously dark screenplay. Instead, the unholy trinity of temptation, cynicism and pure, dark, evil take center stage in this modern western directed by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.

Based on the 2003 novel by Cormac McCarthy, the movie unfolds in the dusty Texas borderlands as hunter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon the remnants of a desert drug deal gone bad, complete with a case containing two million dollars. Succumbing to temptation, Moss makes off with the money setting in motion a chain of events that leaves a trail of blood spattered carnage across the State as he is pursued by the ruthless, coin tossing hit man Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) among whose killing weapons of choice is a pneumatic air gun.

Bearing little in common with pretty much any previous Coen film with the possible exception of Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men is a dark, bleak, ode to the baser elements of the human soul, and a spit in the eye to the noble ones as well.

With a structural trademark hinging upon breaking the conventional norms of predictability, No Country is a movie that will unsettle you at successive turns - in the way deaths are dealt out; by its palpable tension that can almost be cut with a knife, and its periodic deviations from the narrative norm – the latter likely the only Coen brothers "quirk" for which their movies are renown.

Switching back and forth between the game of cat and mouse being played out by Moss and Chigurh and the investigation of unfolding events by cynical aging Texas Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), the Coens weave a web of dangled threads that one can't help but expect will be neatly tied together at story's end, only to tie them up in ways that buck the storytelling norm and manage to be both unsatisfying and true to their nature at the same time.

Unforgettable among this tableau is Bardem's Chigurh. The Spanish actor who has also appeared in Love in the Time of Cholera and Goya's Ghosts evokes the most amazing presence of a ruthless killer with his own twisted adherence to a bizarre code of ethics that nothing short of witnessing his performance can do it justice.

Sadly, however, justice is one of the few items in abundance in this movie. And yet, as unhappy as I am that the Coen's screenplay defiantly refuses to cater to the audience's inherent desire for satisfaction, I grudgingly have to admire them for opting for the unpredictable.

Consider the movie akin to one big coin toss – will it be heads or tales? Call it - you've been calling it your entire life.