No Country for Old Men

Ein stimmungsvoll unheimlicher, schleichend leiser, kalter, harter und einzigartiger Coen-Thriller, der im Finale wie ein großes Kunstwerk wirken möchte. Und das Publikum kauft es ihm gern ab. Die Coen-Brüder sind nach einigen komödiantischen Ausrutschern an den Ort zurückgekehrt, wo ich sie am meisten mag. Als ich ein Teenager war, hat mich in meinen Albträumen Michael Myers verfolgt, heute wird es der Killer von Javier Bardem sein. Und auch dem Sheriff Tommy Lee Jones wird es nicht gelingen, mich vor ihm zu retten. (19.02.2008)

I don't give a damn about journalistic glorification, this film is strong in the details, but unremarkable as a whole. Let's shed a tear at the memory of the brilliant Fargo, the Coens have been getting a bit stale in the last four years. I missed a twist (semi-pathologically spoken moralities don't make a film witty), I missed the Coens' greatest weapon, which has always been a strong story, I missed their typical sense of absurdity and exaggeration, I missed quite a lot here. Bardem's assassin, the character that carries the whole, is neither substantial nor interesting enough that I would already, as overseas publicists are doing with gusto, place this essentially very simple film alongside famous classics. I expect something more from an "unforgettable" film than a banal chase and a one-man-show of one violent mind. Sorry, guys. I attribute the mostly ecstatic enthusiasm for this piece to the well-deserved reputation the talented brothers have earned over their career. (09.01.2008)

No Country for Old Men is not for everyone, in fact, I’d say it’s only for a very narrow section of the public. I’m sure the Coens are very satisfied with it, you can’t deny the film has a distinctive style, but what good is that when I almost fell asleep? The plot moves forward very slowly, and in some places it feels that it doesn’t move at all. The shots of the desert landscape (room, car…) are beautiful, but they could have been shorter and less static. I must praise Javier Barden’s amazing performance, without it the experience would have been barely half as good. (04.08.2008)

The ecstatic cries of American critics, confirmed by the Oscar award, about extreme violence are rather pious pleas of all those who have read McCarthy’s novel and have seen something made by the Coen brothers before. The film is a perfect confirmation that the writers are slowly but surely becoming as arid as the desert on the Texas-Mexico border. This stuff was made for them, but a slave adaptation doesn't make a good movie, and if they didn't have those amazing actors (after American Gangster, Josh Brolin wins again), their adaptation would have absolutely lost its meaning. 70% (rounded down due to expectations). (04.01.2008)

An diesem Film macht fuchst mich aber überhaupt nichts, nicht einmal die Tatsache, dass die Coen-Brüder hier Cormac McCarthys Stil mehr Raum geboten haben als ihrem eigenen. Ihr Beitrag zur exzellenten Design liegt überwiegend in der präzisen technischen Hülle sowie der traditionell großen Auswahl an Typen. Bardems Augen des Bösen werde ich niemals vergessen, wobei Brolins Schnurrbart und Aussehen an die harten Kerle 1970er Jahre erinnert, und Tommy Lee Jones ist genauso verängstigt und altmodisch, wie Sheriff Bell eben sein sollte. Die zerbrochene Geschichtsstruktur der Geschichte, die fehlenden Fäden der Motivation oder einer Verweigerung der Gewalt als coole Requisiten - Bei No Country for Old Men geht es nicht um große Übertreibung, sondern eher um einen frostigen schwarzen Humor. Es handelt sich um ein Abbild der Welt, die früher noch ihre Beschützer des Guten und ihre festen Gesetze hatte, doch mittlerweile ist nichts mehr übriggeblieben. Vielleicht lediglich die Münze aus dem Jahre 1958. Na los! In diesem Jahr hat der Oscar sein Ziel nicht verfehlt. (17.03.2008)

It’s a cheesy thing to say, but... the book is better. Considerably better. A return to the peak of their skills for the brotherly directing duo? Not at all. More like remaining deep in the shadow not only of McCarthy’s book, but mainly in their own shadow, which is that much worse. Which is a little paradoxical in view of the fact that from the very beginning this was an almost slavish word for word adaptation without any ideas or invention of their own. The Coens are stagnating in terms of creative talent. The whole movie is terribly “readable". If you know their movies, then you will know exactly when to expect what shot, when the camera won’t move, when the next “surprising" cut to another scene will come. What makes it even worse is that the opportunity that Cormac McCarthy offered them in the shape of his existentially moralizing modern day western might not come along again. I can’t deny the perfect atmosphere evocation by means of long takes and perfectly exploited silence. Also they managed to choose an excellent cast. But the mistake that drags it to the bottom of mediocrity is the absolute neglection of the character of Sheriff Bell. His tired old-man’s puttering from one place to the next seems superfluous in this movie. While in the book his storyline full of moral dilemmas over the state of society full of paradoxes is the best part. And then there is the fact that the sudden cut at the end doesn’t fit at all - ok, it’s the same as in the book, but without what preceded it. Tommy Lee Jones’ role is simply worthless. Does what I wrote above that this is a bad movie? No way, but it isn’t really good either. (20.01.2008)

A deadly thrilling neo-western with ruggedly honest tradition. What the mournful narrator tells is not just a tale of a worthy and evil pursuer, but also a multi-layered testament that old times cannot be brought back. Originality in every step, a maddeningly oppressive silence, and a feeling that this story could have been even a good bit longer. (25.12.2009)

When Hitchcock allowed his protagonist to die in one-third of his legendary movie Psycho and fill the space with other characters, it was considered a revolution in the film industry. The Coen brothers go even further and play with the script, going against all conventions and the expectations of genre fans. In the traditional mainstream film concept, the script has its own rules and is developed almost to perfection. It is known when the first dead body should appear on the scene and how many plot twists should happen to maintain the viewer's attention. The Coen brothers mock their audience and when the climax of the plot is supposed to happen, they make a fool of them. From the perspective of a genre fan, the film lacks any kind of ending. Not just the so-called "open" ending, where the protagonist decides what to do and leaves it up to the viewer's imagination how it turns out. Three-quarters of the film prepares the viewer for the final confrontation between two main unbending characters - and it is tragically and comically thwarted. They introduce characters whose development is in direct contrast to the viewer's expectations (Tommy Lee Jones or Woody Harrelson) and unnecessarily let those with whom the viewer sympathizes die. In this respect, they are original and maybe that was one of the reasons why the academics decided how The Oscars turned out. On the other hand, the film is incredibly captivating with its structure and a series of clever details and individual scenes, but the script is unfinished and some characters are simply untrustworthy. The Coen brothers have never been afraid to depict violence and death, but they went a bit overboard here. Instead of the standard three dead bodies, there is a pile of them and you feel like you are watching a Tarantino film. As Stalin once said, one death is a tragedy, a million then becomes a necessary statistic. The main protagonist is a mass murderer who seems to have escaped from some comic book, and again, I would believe Tarantino more. He doesn't belong in real life. In that battle with the drug cartel, he wouldn't stand a chance by the way. Holding a gas bomb in his hand is too conspicuous and he makes too many mistakes. To truly evaluate the film, it would be good to read Cormac McCarthy's book from 2005, which I have not done. This film is strong in details and individual scenes, but I have quite a few problems with its overall reception. Overall impression: 80%. (12.03.2008)

That's what I call courage — making a whole movie with no music. What's interesting is that I didn't mind at all. Otherwise, the Coen brothers play a classic game of cat and mouse, arming the cat with an air pistol (amazing idea by the way) and the mouse with a shotgun loaded with tent stakes. The atmosphere is built brilliantly, and the insertion of the philosophizing Tommy Lee Jones gives the story the right flair. The Oscars for Bardem and both directors are definitely deserved. I'm a little surprised about the award for best motion picture, but it's good that the golden statuette was given to this type of movie again. A slightly weak five stars. (26.02.2008)

A very different and original film. The Coens have finally stopped messing around with the awkwardly rough comedies that I found so desperately boring and instead made a hard-hitting film without humor, with an atmosphere that could be cut with a knife and action scenes that could be in a film textbook; without a single slow-motion shot, absolutely unpredictable, raw, brutal, realistic, and excellent. The only thing that bothered me was the storyline with the peculiar policeman Tommy Lee Jones. His lamenting over the old times that will never return somehow didn't fit well with the tough story about two tough guys competing for a hefty bundle of money. (12.07.2008)

It could have been more Coen and less McCarthy, but then it wouldn't have been as good an adaptation. Too bad about the few unfilmed scenes and the "sort of" ending. Yeah, I know that it is also in the book, but still. (13.07.2009)

No Country for Old Men for some time failed to fit my concept of the Coens as messengers of the individual modern American war on existentialism that every American subconsciously wages (really sorry about that sentence). It's no wonder Joel and Ethan make film after film, and when there's not a lens in sight, they're busily pounding away at the script. They're going through the same lifelong crisis as the characters in their films, and fighting it in their own way. In their imaginations, America looks like a long, empty, bleak plain... regardless of whether its a snowy, dry, or grassy one. No Country is different than Fargo or The Man Who Wasn't There. It comes by it through a) an adaptation of a McCarthy novel (i.e., by an author whose mindset is similar to the Coen Brothers, but who is thirty times more solidly a pessimist), and b) not pounding so much into the eyes. For all the male characters here have one thing in common: unchanging principles – Josh Brolin never gives up and will never ask anyone for help, Anton Chigurh (you find a more villainous name) always keeps his "promises" and resolutions. The tragic element, therefore, is the old Sheriff Tommy Lee Jones, who willy-nilly has to reorient himself to a version of America 2.0 he can never understand, but no longer has the strength to fight. (10.10.2011)

I really like how raw and brutal this film is, and how it can tell a meaningful story. There are characters here that you can connect with, and it's even more surprising how they turn out. Cormac McCarthy created a good template, but the film adaptation added something more to it. You can definitely see where younger creators of raw, slow dramas drew inspiration. The Coen brothers simply knew, and still know, what they are doing. (24.04.2015)

No Country for Old Men is certainly one of the best films the Coen brothers have made to date. I've seen the film several times and each time I've been blown away again by the atmosphere, the omnipresent tension and last but not least by the excellent performances of almost everyone involved. But I have to give a special mention to Javier Bardem, his role as a villain is simply unforgettable. (95%) (16.10.2020)