by Isabella Jordan No Country For Old Men Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, and more. What happens when a hunter finds dead bodies, a stash of heroin, and a couple million dollars in cash? A simple premise right? Yet somehow the creators of this movie took such a simple plot and made it extraordinary. It went on to be this year's Oscar winner for best picture. To me, the movie was a study in the consequences we face for the decisions we make. Javier Bardem's chilling character, Anton Chigurh, more than once flips a coin and asks another character to choose their fate. One chooses correctly, and is spared. One refuses to choose, afraid they know the outcome already. That one isn't spared.

Josh Brolin's Llewelyn Moss is a simple man like many you'd find in America. He finds dead bodies, a lot of illegal heroin, and even more cash. Where some would immediately call the police, anyone at that scene would know that a crime had been committed there, Llewelyn chose to take the money and a pistol and head back to his home. He only hints at what really took place to his wife before leaving again, knowing they and the money must disappear.

Meanwhile, a man who's arrested, the reason isn't disclosed, kills a deputy in a small town Texas police station and escapes, leaving one Ed Tom Bell (played by the always fabulous Tommy Lee Jones) to try to find the suspect who killed his man.

The man is Anton Chigurh and it doesn't take long for him to be on Llewelyn's trail. Especially since Llewelyn doesn't immediately realize that there is a transponder in that bag of cash and it makes him very easy to find...

Again, this is a very simple plot and it wouldn't take much to come up with the two possible outcomes. Will Llewelyn escape the impersonal killer Chigurh? Or will the killer claim him and all he cares about?

Some stellar acting and a whole lot of violence made this movie stand out from a thousand other similar films. Tommy Lee Jones gave his usual wonderful performance. Only this time, instead of being the confident, self-assured hero he often plays, he portrays a weary man who is worn down by the evil of other men and longing for a simpler life. A world where the acts that scar his memory never happened. It's an understated performance that hits the right note. He's amazing.

The other stellar performance in the film was Javier Bardem as the unstoppable killer. This performance was also low key and that's why it worked so well. His Anton Chigurh was indistinct and didn't have witty lines or peculiar habits. He didn't need to be Hannibal Lector to scare the piss out of us. He could have been any man with a bad haircut. He had little to say, wore nothing out of the ordinary. We're told nothing of his life.

Just as in reality, the unknown emerges without the back story, the explanations, the obvious motivations. Usually this doesn't work in fiction but it works magnificently here. Bardem's killer goes about his bloody work with the practicality and interest of a man who's sold appliances for thirty years.

The other actors turned in great performances. Josh Brolin was solid as the hunted man who made one bad decision after another. Kelly Macdonald, a charming British actress, turned in a good performance with a pretty authentic Southern accent (she overdid it a little) as his wife Carla Jean.

The violence? There's quite a bit of it and while an argument could be made that it was thrown in for shock effect and gratuitous, it went a long way in setting the mood for this dark tale. The lack of violence in one key scene at the end of the movie, it happens off screen, made it all the more terrifying to realize what happened. This film isn't for the faint of heart and again, brings the shock of reality into play here. There is a lot of killing here. This film could also have bore the title There Will Be Blood (that's a review for another time LOL). None of it is incedrible, over the top, sensational killing that we've been seeing in the "torture porn" films of late (not a sexual reference but a reference to films like Hostel and its sequel). The killings are that realistic, could happen in front of you in this world. It helps create an environment of terror for the viewer, a sense of inescapable dread.

In the end, it all comes down to decisions and it's realistic, unlike the dramatic tying up of all loose ends with a dash of hope thrown in for good measure that Hollywood normally dishes up. It's unsatisfying but it's true to itself. It works.

At just over two hours, it will seem like a lot less, this is a disturbing movie that you may not watch again but won't soon forget. This is not for the teens, not even the sophisticated ones who tell you they can handle it. Don't watch it alone. Don't watch it just before bedtime.

But do watch it. At least once.

Best lines:

Ed Tom Bell: Alright then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em . It's peculiar. I'm older now then he ever was by twenty years. So in a sense he's the younger man. Anyway, first one I don't remember too well but it was about meeting him in town somewhere, he's gonna give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains of a night. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by. He just rode on past... and he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. 'Bout the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold, and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.

Isy