(May Contain Spoilers)
Some people had recommended this film to me a few times and said that it was a classic and I will say now that I didn’t think that this film was a classic, I thought it was good but I wouldn’t put it on the best films of all time list. I say this because of the last 30 or so minutes of the film, which dragged so much and not only that the film for me ended 30 minutes before the actual ending and was surprised that the film carried on for the duration as it didn’t add any important information into the story. I did love Josh Brolin’s performance as the hillbilly, Llewelyn Moss. Equally, Javier Bardem as the psychotic killer Anton Chigurh is iconic.
We start with Llewelyn trying to shoot some wild cattle when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong in the Mexican desert. He finds gang members dead or really dead and discovers all the drugs in the back of the pick-up truck, however, follows the blood to lead him to the now dead guy who has a suitcase full of money from the deal. Llewelyn takes the suitcase of money back to his trailer, but for some reason goes back to the scene of the crime to bring water to one of the (almost) survivors. When Llewelyn reaches the truck the drug dealer member is dead and that’s not the worst thing!!!! The Mexican drug gang come and discover Llewelyn’s truck and try to kill him, however, he manages to escape. This then starts to cat-and-mouse on the run part of the film.
Llewelyn urges his wife to go and live with her mother, whilst he tries to shake off the drug gang members. Meanwhile, Anton is going round killing cops and random people with a bolt gun (which is the most iconic symbol of the film) and is hired by the rival drug dealer gang to find out what happened. However, Anton turns against them and kills everyone, finding Llewelyn’s truck also and tracking it to his trailer and therefore chasing him around town. Additionally, the local sheriff’s are also involved in solving the murders of the drug dealer and are trying to figure out what happened linking it
back to Llewelyn. Later the audience witness Llewelyn on the run, staying in motels and hiding the suitcase of money, however, is found by the Mexican drug dealing gang and shortly after Anton. Although Anton kills the Mexican drug dealers and waits for Llewelyn’s return, but he figures out something isn’t right and managed to escape.
Further down the line, Anton and Llewelyn have a shoot out although, Llewelyn manages to escape to another motel but that isn’t far enough, and the sheriff’s find him dead. This is the most disappointing point in the film because we watch the chase between Llewelyn and Anton to not witness the actual murder and just see his body!!! Meanwhile the company that hired Anton in the first place try to recover the money from Llewelyn, however, get caught up by Anton and also get killed. There is a lot of killing in this film. What happened after this was irreverent and not memorable.
No Country For Old Men is a great film for the chase and cat-and-mouse storyline, but in places is very disappointing and as I said before the final 30 minutes were completely irrelevant and turned to the sheriff’s story, although it didn’t feel like his story at all until they made it his. I think they should have finished the film just after the death of Llewelyn and also showed this on camera, because that was such an anti-climax. To be invested in such a long film to be disappointed isn’t something I would recommend watching, however the performances were great, and the general storyline was great up until a certain point. Thrilling, tense, anti-climax.
Available now on Amazon Prime
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