Movie Review: No Country for Old Men

Buckle up, sports fans, we got a different breed of cattle on our hands here. We're reviewing the movie "No Country For Old Men" tonight. It's the latest installment from the Coen brothers, and their first adaptation of a novel. The fact that I believe the Coen brothers are the best filmmakers shooting out there is irrelevant, really. Any crackpot on the street with a critic's column will tell you to go see this movie, and they are. I've seen the movie five times and read the book through once, and I can say with definite certainty we got a thick piece of work here.

I was interested in seeing their adaptation of a novel since their original writing is what makes them unique, and their voice is always so naturally derived from the atmospheres created by it. But the voices of both artists are virtually identical and it is easy to see why they picked Cormac McCarthy's novel to bring to the screen. While the omissions, and especially the additions, made from the book for the movie are obviously a great investigation into decision making in adaptations, it would be a waste of everybody's time to go trudging through the entirety of it, and I don't want to ruin anything for those of you who haven't done it yet anyway. If you want to know what the differences are, go to Barnes & Noble, it's right out on display, will be until the movie's out of theatres.

For those of us watching with the artist's eye, a word on direction. I had anticipated this film much like "Fargo" in many aspects. Especially more so than any of their other films. Lots of landscapes, almost still photography composition, using the long straight roads and natural diagonals of the land. Whether a sea of tan Texan desert grass, or a sea of Fargo snow, I liked this film for a vision of simple folk and simple country. However, true to the book, there is a darker, looming vibration. The storm's a-brewin'. This is indeed a film about contrast. Both thematically, and then represented visually by camera use and sound work.