no country for old men…

is a return to form for the Coens, which is to say it’s an excellent movie, but is at the same time completely different in tone than almost any other movie they have made. This movie affected me, and I really recommend it. Unique, suprising, original, yet using standard genre conventions so it feels familiar in many ways. The greatest accomplishments of the film are the character of Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem), the breathtaking cinematography by the incomparable Roger Deakins, and the momentum and efficiency of the script.

This movie is unsettling and deliberate… and for most viewers, I would imagine, unsatisfying. But I can’t think of a movie that I’ve seen in the last year that I would recommend more. Go see this movie.