No Country for Old Men is a 2007 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Production started in May 2006 on location in Texas and New Mexico. The title of the film is from the first line of W. B. Yeats’ poem “Sailing to Byzantium”.
in the The film first screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007. The film opened in limited releaseUnited States on November 9, 2007, and will have a wide release in the United States on November 21, 2007. The film will be released in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2008.
- Directed by Joel Coen , Ethan Coen
- Produced by Joel CoenEthan, CoenScott Rudin
- Written by Screenplay: Joel Coen Ethan Coen
- Novel: Cormac McCarthy
- Starring Josh Brolin ,Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Kelly Macdonald, Woody Harrelson
- Music by Carter Burwell
- Cinematography Roger Deakins
- Editing by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
- Distributed by Miramax Films
- Paramount Vantage
- Release date(s) November 9, 2007 (Limited)
- November 21, 2007 (Wide)
- Running time 122 min.
- Country United States
- Language English
- Budget $30,000,000
Cast
- Tommy Lee Jones as Ed Tom Bell
- Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh
- Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss
- Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells
- Kelly Macdonald as Carla Jean Moss
- Tess Harper as Loretta Bell
- Barry Corbin as Ellis
- Stephen Root as Man who hires Wells
- Beth Grant as Agnes Moss
The film opens with a shot of desolate, wide-open country in Texas. In a voice over, the local Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) tells of the changing times: in the old days, some sheriffs never wore guns. He then tells of a boy he sent to the electric chair for killing a girl, simply because he wanted to kill someone, and would do it again if he had the chance.Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a man out hunting near the Rio Grande, comes across a drug deal gone sour—leaving behind a cache of heroin, two million dollars, several corpses and one dying Mexican who asks for water. Moss takes the money and leaves, but is later bothered by his conscience and returns with water for the Mexican. Driving back early the next morning, he is ambushed by gunmen and barely escapes with his life.
The next day Moss puts his wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald) on a bus to go stay at her mother’s until the conflict is resolved. Meanwhile psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), hired by a businessman (Stephen Root) to recover the drug money, begins hunting Moss after finding his truck at the scene of the drug deal. Chigurh kills without remorse almost everyone he meets on his search: he does, however, spare a gas station owner who correctly calls a coin flip. Chigurh uses a variety of weapons in the film,including a cattle gun. Moss and Chigurh play a cat-and-mouse game as Moss attempts to lose him by changing towns and hotels, to no avail.
Soon, Sheriff Bell, always a step behind Moss and Chigurh, pieces together the crime scene and begins looking for Moss. The businessman hires Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), an ex-Colonel who’s dealt with Chigurh before, to recover the money. He quickly tracks Moss to a hospital in Mexico (where Moss recovers from his encounters with Chigurh) and offers to protect him in exchange for the money. Wells explains that he is Moss’s only hope, as Chigurh has a personal code of sorts, and will kill Moss no matter what. Wells returns to his hotel and is killed by Chigurh, who was lying in wait for him.
The phone rings in Wells’ hotel room; it is Moss. Chigurh tells Moss that if he brings him the money, he will spare Moss’s wife, but not him. Moss refuses, vows to make Chigurh a “special project” and hangs up.
Meanwhile Bell meets with Carla Jean (who is staying with her mother) and tries to find out where her husband is. He offers to protect them both if she talks. Llewelyn calls her not long after, and tells her to meet him in El Paso, where he will give her the money and put her on a plane while he goes after Chigurh. Carla Jean calls Sheriff Bell and tells him where Moss will meet her, she then leaves with her mother to the airport, unaware they are being trailed by a team of Mexicans also after the money (with Carla’s mother exacerbating the situation by unwittingly giving one of the hitmen trailing her the exact time and place they were to meet with Moss).
Bell arrives in El Paso moments too late: Moss is dead (along with another hotel guest and Mexican hitmen), the money is gone, and there is no sign of Chigurh.
Some time later, Bell visits an old friend and fellow lawman, Ellis (Barry Corbin). Bell is planning on retiring in the face of changing times that he finds insurmountable. Ellis relates the story of another lawman who was murdered in 1909 on his own front porch. The men watched him die while his wife tried to save him. Ellis points out that what Bell has been facing is nothing new.Meanwhile, Carla Jean returns home from her mother’s funeral to find Chigurh waiting for her. She doesn’t have the money, so he has no reason to kill her, she says. Chigurh counters that he offered her husband the chance to save her, and he turned him down. Carla Jean repeats that he doesn’t have to kill her, and Chigurh offers her a chance to save her life by winning a flip of a coin. Carla Jean refuses to call it, saying that “the coin doesn’t mean anything. It’s just you.” The scene cuts to the outside of the house. Chigurh walks out, checking the bottom of his boots first (implying that he killed Carla after all; despite the violent nature of his profession he doesn’t like to have the blood of his victims on his person). Chigurh drives away but is hit by a car, breaking his arm. He pays a boy for his shirt -to use as a sling -and his silence, and limps off as the ambulance arrives.
The film closes on Bell, in an uneasy retirement at home. Sitting at the breakfast table, he relates two dreams he had, both involving his father, a fellow lawman who died twenty years ago. In the second dream, the two of them are riding horses in the snow, and his father, carrying fire in a horn, rides on ahead to prepare a camp for him.