The hills of West Texas are
dried and fissured, filled with harsh sand that seems ready to cave at any
moment, and jagged rocky earth that yields vegetation only to hide its
ruthlessness. Skies roll with menacing clouds and the rivers are so cold you’ll
freeze before you drown.

For the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “No
Country For Old Men,” this landscape could suggest any number of shadowy
premises. Maybe it mirrors the mortality of the grizzled, solitary Llewellyn
Moss (Josh Brolin), cluelessly opportunistic after stumbling upon a drug deal
gone south. Or maybe it deepens the scars of Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones),
whose righteous moral code is challenged by his own bitter observations of the
aforementioned melee. And perhaps the bleak scene also blackens Anton Chigurh
(Javier Bardem) ­— the most devastating human manifestation of evil since Darth
Vader­­ — whose soulless eyes and malicious trigger have no regard for the
innocent, condemning all life guilty as he by painting a violent trail of blood
across the Southwest desert.

While out hunting, Moss stumbles upon the remains of a
Mexican-standoff blood bath. One group stocked the heroin, the other held
enough cash to keep Moss and his wife (Kelly Macdonald) content for the rest of
their days. Almost a footstep behind him is Chigurh, who’s been hired to
retrieve the money, and Bell,
who finds something strangely apocalyptic in Chigurh’s growing murder spree.

Over the next few days, these three men come in close and
often oblivious contact with each other — though not always directly, and
especially not under amicable circumstances. In the most heart-racing scenes,
we spy these near misses, as when Moss and Chigurh stand face-to-face with only
the adjoining wall of their hotel rooms keeping the chaos at bay. That
Chigurh’s weapon of choice is a high-powered rifle or, more often, a simple
oxygen tank, makes the threat not only frightening, but precise and messy all
at once.

We’re tirelessly familiar with the Coens’ lighter fare —
“The Big Lebowski” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” are student favorites and
fantastic comedies. But you’ll find no Dude or Ku Klux Klan dance number in
these desolate canyons, where a mere silhouette can entail one’s death. Over a
decade out, the Coens have returned to the cynical universe of early
masterpiece “Fargo,” trading the Dakota snow for
Texas dust.
Both films, along with first feature “Blood Simple,” depict human existence as
hopelessly flawed: We construct legal pillars to affirm our own brilliance,
only to instinctively ignore them for our natural idiosyncracy. So it’s quite
appropriate that the source for their latest work of lightning-striking-thrice
is McCarthy’s prose, in which characters often struggle for moral honor in the
face of human brutality. These morals are often at odds with survival, and even
dark behavior doesn’t go without merit. As the sneaky Woody Harrelson character
notes, Chigurh — ruthless as his murders are — is still more principled than
the rest.

What easily lifts “No Country For Old Men” miles above the
Coens’ previous work is “Fargo”
cinematographer Roger Deakins’ haunting portraits of light and shadow. Whereas
the landscape of “Fargo”
spans empty, snowy plains that deceptively hide the truth from the cops,
Deakins’ desert is dangerous for everyone. Hiding is not an option; every man’s
fate is laid out before him in foul, predestined science.

The Coens have succeeded in fusing every frame with
indelible meaning; each camera movement, each word of dialogue by the
startlingly realistic cast, each desperate in Carter Burwell’s minimalist
score. That there really is no country for old men is a foregone conclusion
during Bell’s
opening monologue. As his weary voice eulogizes life, set against yet another
sunrise, we see that the country gave up old men a long time ago, granting
their dated existence an absolution of right and wrong in morality’s natural
selection. After all, death and disorientation are a younger man’s game.