No Country for Old Men: pro & con reviews of Hollywood's "Best Picture of the Year".

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No Country for Old Men, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the 2005 book of the same name by critically acclaimed American novelist Cormac McCarthy, generated considerable excitement among critics and other journalists at festival screenings throughout 2007, from its premiere at Cannes in May, a September screening at the Toronto Film Festival, and an October screening at the New York Film Festival. Upon its November 2007 national release, the film was greeted with rapturous reviews, with many critics unreservedly hailing it as a "masterpiece."

Most critics seemed especially appreciative of the way in which the film simultaneously exploited and subverted genre conventions, although some differed over how precisely to characterize that genre--a chase movie?, a crime thriller?, a psycho-killer movie?, a Western?, an anti-Western?, a horror comedy? The overwhelming majority of critics, however, agreed that the marriage of the Coens's characteristically quirky, mannered cinematic approach with the minimalist literary style and bleak philosophical ruminations of Cormac McCarthy yielded a remarkably thoughtful and compellingly suspenseful entertainment, which featured one of the most supremely creepy and frightening screen villains since Hannibal Lecter.

There was a distinct minority of critical naysayers--including Jonathan Rosenbaum in The Chicago Reader, Andrew Sarris in The New York Observer, and Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post--but on the whole one could say that No County for Old Men slayed the nation's film journalists, both print and Internet, and at the end of the year appeared on more critics' top-ten lists (354) than any other film.

Moviegoers, however, were not so easily convinced. Even those who acknowledged thoroughly enjoying, for nearly two hours, the nail-biting suspense of the ongoing battle of wits between our nominal "hero," Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) and his psychopathic, relentless pursuer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), expressed befuddlement, if not outrage, at the failure of the film to deliver any sort of dramatic climax--an old-fashioned but understandable and satisfying conclusion. Although the film's on-screen voice of conscience and voiceover narrator, Sherriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), is perhaps the most sympathetic character and has some of the best and most memorable lines, he is also the focus of the film's unexpectedly sudden and, for many viewers, shocking ending, wherein, encouraged by his wife (Tess Harper), he recounts two recent dreams, before a cut to black.

      Both had my father in 'era. It's peculiar. I'm
   older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in
   a sense he's the younger man. Anyway, first one I
   don't remember too well but it was about meeting
   him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some
   money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like
   we was both back in older times and I was on
   horseback goin' through the mountains of a night.
   Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was
   cold and there was snow on the ground and he
   rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin'
   by. He just rode on past ... and he had his
   blanket wrapped around him and his head down
   and when he rode past I seen he was carryin' fire
   in a horn the way people used to do and I could
   see the horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the
   color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that
   he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make
   afire somewhere out there in all that dark and all
   that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he
   would be there. And then I woke up.

Now that No Country for Old Men has won Academy Awards for Best Direction, Best Screenplay Adaptation, Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem) and Best Motion Picture of the Year, we felt it was time for Cineaste to have its say. Given the litmus-test nature of the film, we felt it would be fruitful to debate the films' merits and shortcomings, as well as some reflections on "what does it all mean," with "Pro" and "Con" reviews by two frequent contributors to our pages--The Editors