No Country for Old Men (2007): A

Director(s): Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Screenplay: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Tess Harper and Barry Corbin. Distributor: Miramax Films. Runtime: 122 min. Rating: R.

Joel and Ethan Coen's superlative new film opens with sublime shots of a small Texan desert, paralleled by a Tommy Lee Jones voice-over. It's an exhilarating establishment of a story, with the each shot increasing in sunlight until the beautiful landscape is fully-lit. The camera subsequently pans to a man—a cow stunner in hand—being arrested; he gets in the cop car, and the voice-over immediately comes to a close. It is a moment of beauteous exactness, where space, time and even fear are accounted for; without a doubt, this exactness of time and space is one of the many trademarks of The Coens' No Country for Old Men—a stunning, searing masterpiece, raw and beautiful by turns. It is that rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind, while unequivocally reaching a cinematic apex in filmmaking and storytelling.

No Country for Old Men is the first film not coming from the Coens' own material. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's brooding, coldly written novel, the material nevertheless seems to compliment the siblings' style, with comedy, grimly original characters, and a wry script in hand; the film also undoubtedly marks their return to form, dropping the disappointing feel of The Ladykillers and continuing the exceptional neo-noir-type genre of their masterpieces Blood Simple and Fargo. (One could even say their is a hint of The Big Lebowski, particularly in its narrative backbone.) The film stars Josh Brolin as Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss, who, while hunting in a barren desert similar to that of the opening shot, stumbles upon trouble: dead men, drugs, and two million dollars; needless to say, he runs with the money, having not a clue what is expected. Leaving his naive wife (Beth Grant), he subsequently chooses to abandon everything, in turn taking the money and running. Yet more than the police is after him; the man from the opening shot, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) wants the money and his life, but what comes is more than cat and mouse—it's a massacre to the environment that Moss flees to. Anton is a psychopath, simply crazy, his face unforgettable—to these eyes, he could be one of the most scary villains in quite some time, representing an unstoppable inhuman force. If, then, Chigurh represents what one could call an inhuman machine, then Moss represents the exact opposite: humane. Following McCarthy's lead, this is one of the many moral themes the story represents, though I suppose this is one of the biggest, given its main connection to its title that, upon second viewing, seems explicitly lucid.

The film—and its narrative therein—is so brutishly constructed, so perfectly realized, so caught up in its nihilism that it's almost as if what is happening is real. This happens, in specificity, because of the way the Coens are able racketeer an insinuating tension throughout; they get it all right. The film reaches a cinematic nirvana because of its perfect tension—basically another element mastered by the Coens. Roger Deakins's sublime cinematography perpetuates the events on screen in a transcendent way, as his shots echo the film's austere mise-en-scene with exact precision; every empty space, every little light—it all seems to become part of the film's stark collective whole. Landscapes, motel rooms, houses—the way the film is framed also seems to exude a balance in between tranquility and brutality; as the camera tracks, at any given moment, one won't know what comes next. Yet this is one of the Coen's auteristic trademarks, and this film is no different: it's also wryly funny and cunning. This is why it's so unique, also given the film's acting. Bardem's tour-de-force is transcendently matched with McCarthy's description, and to these eyes he is creepy as hell—albeit truly unforgettable (and worthy enough to be called one of the best performances of the year). Jones, Bardem, and Brolin together finish up the film's perfection, as the camera captures each countenance in every scene with unforgettable shots. These actors have found their film.

The last quarter of the film is centered on Jones's sheriff—who is caught up in the whole thing. He is a man who no longer fathoms the extents of the universe he once lived in, as he explains how he cannot keep up with his job, or even his routine. Here, the film changes from cat and mouse to a striking moral balance, as both Moss and Chigurh's missions seem to, metaphorically, be complete. The Coen's don't blatantly dodge such a conclusion, yet it's definitely new ground for them: much like the opening shot, No Country for Old Men's finale is of the sheriff telling his wife a dream—which is, in context, a strikingly similar idea to the film's main idea that, also upon second viewing, I suspect many will oversee. But the moral is there, and it perpetuates the whole of the film itself: a triumph in every sense of the word, No Country for Old Men really ends up being not only a testament to brilliant filmmaking, but a meditation on the way society works now.