Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Acclaimed filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen deliver their most gripping and ambitious film yet in this sizzling and supercharged action-thriller. When a man stumbles on a bloody crime scene, a pickup truck loaded with heroin, and two million dollars in irresistible cash, his decision to take the money sets off an unstoppable chain reaction of violence. Not even west Texas law can contain it. Based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy, and featuring an acclaimed cast led by Tommy Lee Jones, this gritty game of cat and mouse will take you to the edge of your seat and beyond right up to its heart-stopping final act.

Amazon.com:
The Coen brothers make their finest thriller since Fargo with a restrained adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. Not that there aren't moments of intense violence, but No Country for Old Men is their quietest, most existential film yet. In this modern-day Western, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet who could use a break. One morning while hunting antelope, he spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies (both human and canine). In examining the site, he finds a case filled with $2 million. Moss takes it with him, tells his wife (Kelly Macdonald) he's going away for awhile, and hits the road until he can determine his next move. On the way from El Paso to Mexico, he discovers he's being followed by ex-special ops agent Chigurh (an eerily calm Javier Bardem). Chigurh's weapon of choice is a cattle gun, and he uses it on everyone who gets in his way--or loses a coin toss (as far as he's concerned, bad luck is grounds for death). Just as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a World War II vet, is on Moss's trail, Chigurh's former colleague, Wells (Woody Harrelson), is on his. For most of the movie, Moss remains one step ahead of his nemesis. Both men are clever and resourceful--except Moss has a conscience, Chigurh does not (he is, as McCarthy puts it, "a prophet of destruction"). At times, the film plays like an old horror movie, with Chigurh as its lumbering Frankenstein monster. Like the taciturn terminator, No Country for Old Men doesn't move quickly, but the tension never dissipates. This minimalist masterwork represents Joel and Ethan Coen and their entire cast, particularly Brolin and Jones, at the peak of their powers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Rating : - Perhaps the Coens' Best
I confess to being baffled by the 3.5 star rating this movie has received. I'm a longtime Coen Brothers lover and I think this is some of the best material (script-wise) that they've ever worked with - no surprise considering it's a Cormac McCarthy adaptation, but still...

As other reviewers have beaten the plot to death, I just want to make a few critical points without getting into the plot synopsis, but there may be some spoilers in here. First, this is a movie ABOUT violence, or the ubiquity of violence. Yes, it's about other things too, but this movie has been kicked around by the usual suspects quite a bit with reference to the level of violence, and frankly that's just silly. If it were violent for its own sake, I would agree there was nothing artistic about it, but it's just not. I myself am not a big fan of violence in itself, and in the first really violent scene of the film, I had to turn away. And the point of the movie (for me) is that YOU SHOULD HAVE TO TURN AWAY. Violence should be repugnant, and difficult to watch. This is timely, considering we're presently involved in two wars, and entering an era historically similar to the one portrayed in the film. I think one of Anton Chighur's lines sums it up best: "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" He delivers this just before he executes the profit-driven character played by Woody Harrelson, but I think the scope of that idea is much broader than that of the scene and perhaps is the underlying question in the film.

Whatever else anyone says about the film, it really is perfectly written, perfectly cast (down to the last extra), impeccably acted and beautifully filmed. It requires some thought, if you aren't just watching to enjoy the carnage, and really I think this is the most one can hope for from a film.