Is this a western movie? I am reviewing the movie “No Country For Old Men” and it has created a dilemma in my mind as to it being a western movie. The time frame places it in the west in the 1980’s during the early wild times where money brought drugs through the west Texas country because it was so isolated. The violence and blood could class this movie among the horror classics and the story is woven around a chase for the money.
The scenery and landscape of west Texas creates a character of a dry and wild place still in the 1890’s. The land shapes and outlines the three main characters and gives the viewer a glimpse of how little things have really changed. Actually living and growing up in this area Tommy Lee Jones, as Sheriff Bell, portrays a man who has spent almost all of his adult life as a sheriff in this west Texas County. He now is confronted with something that he just can’t see and feels over matched by it’s evil like a ghost of everything bad that he ever knew or saw. Llewelyn Moss is played by Josh Brolin, as a down to earth West Texas person who is just trying to get a break and sees his future in a drug deal gone bad. The bad guy needs no real introduction because from the beginning of the film Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Barden, explodes on the screen with violence and mayhem. He is chasing the money with a singular purpose while being followed at a distance by Sheriff Bell.
This dark movie begins with the impact of a violent murder in the Sheriffs office. A deputy is strangled by the handcuffs on the wrists of Anton Chigurh. Time drops back to place the reason and time as we see the dry landscape, drugs, money and a deal that went horribly bad in the desert. Llewlyen discovers the scene while hunting for antelope. The massacre of buyers and sellers of drugs draws him into the web of maybe getting something out of this chaos. Everyone is dead or dieing and Llewelyn sets out to track the survivor who has the money. Trailing him to a tree he spots him lying in the shade and he watches and waits him out as he dies under the tree. He goes over and retrieves the money and his troubles begin.
There are some light moments to take the edge off the mayhem but in reality it is very small and cannot cut the tension developed by the movie. Llewelyn returns to the massacre to do a kindness for a dieing man and the roof falls in on him. The chase begins by both buyers and sellers.
In the years of the early west the country and times were considered to be hard on women and horses. The movie depicts the hardness of west Texas to be hard on anyone who is in the way of Anton Chigurh as he searches for the money.
The movie for me was magnetizing and I could feel it happening around me. I recommend this movie for those with strong constitutions. You can then judge if you think it is a western movie. I have it as a western and it is rated in my top 100 best western movies.
