Tonight I went to see the terrific movie No Country for Old Men (title taken from a Keats poem). Simply, this film rocked and you need to see it.Adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen (I didn’t know this, or much of anything at all about the film until I saw it), the movie follows the paths of several different folks in the aftermath of a multi-million dollar drug deal gone disastrously wrong. It stars Tommy Lee Jones as the county sheriff; Josh Brolin as an accidental millionaire cowboy; Woody Harrelson as former federal law enforcer-turned bounty hunter; and Javier Bardem as the scariest bad guy to appear on-screen in a long, long time (I nominate him for Creepiest Haircut, too).
One thing I feel I need to point out here is that I didn’t even realize until 3/4 of the way through the movie that it was set in 1980. Shows how observant I am.
Despite my poor attention to detail, I did notice that for all its awesome messiness, No Country did a great job at tying up lose ends where it counts (and most importantly, leaving them untied where it doesn’t matter). For instance, when someone got shot… they needed medical attention, or at least the supplies to fix themselves. Oftentimes, characters in other movies will get shot and perform dutifully till the end like dealing with a bruise. Here they either die, or mope around painfully until they get meds. This is the kind of thing that matters to me in a movie. That being said, don’t be under the impression that everything wraps up nicely at the end - it doesn’t and it’s for the better.
The themes of chance (or luck, or even destiny), the power of money, oh, and grotesque human violence all play heavily throughout the film. I loved this combination, and it got me thinking: Is America really turning into the sewer that old men would have us believe?
From drugs to manners to murders… if it’s not one thing, it’s the next… and our elders (particularly Republicans and Hillary Clinton) would have us believe it just ain’t what it used to be. Tommy Lee Jones’ sheriff character, on the eve of his retirement when the movie starts, seems to fall in this camp, as far as I can tell. He confesses in the beginning of the movie that as a young man, he loved listening to the anecdotes of the old men. This probably indoctrinated him early on to accept the belief in the ongoing deterioration of America’s moral fabric.
He reads the truth-is-crazier-than-fiction newspaper headlines aloud to his protege. He cruises through a crime scene loaded with dead bodies, mostly unphased. All the while, a maniac is on the loose slaying scores of people (both innocent and not-so-innocent) in his search to find missing money.
I couldn’t help but think, “The old men might be right - America really is turning into a sewer!” But I was soon reminded that gruesome violence is part of human existence. It’s always been around, regardless of time (Think: Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood) and country (Think: Canada).
At one point, TLJ’s character visits an old friend who was himself a victim of violence many years ago. The guy reminds him that it’s always been this bad, maybe even worse before.
Maybe this is just no country for (nostalgic) old men.