Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men (2007)

Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is based on the 2005 best-selling novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. Now a resident of New Mexico, McCarthy’s other novels include The Orchard Keeper (1965), Child of God (1974), All the Pretty Horses (1992) and The Road (2006).

Producers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen wrote the screenplay for Miramax Films, with both men also sharing directorial duties. Carter Burwell created the original music score, with Roger Deakins delivering the bleak, atmospheric cinematography.

Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin Head No Country for Old Men Cast

Tommy Lee Jones (Sheriff Ed Tom Bell) and Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss) head the strong cast. Other players include Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells), Kelly Macdonald (Carla Jean Moss), Garret Dillahunt (Wendell), Tess Harper (Loretta Bell), Barry Corbin (Ellis), Stephen Root (Man Who Hires Wells), Rodger Boyce (El Paso Sheriff), Beth Grant (Carla Jean’s Mother), Kit Gwin (Sheriff Bell’s Secretary) and Ana Reeder (Poolside Woman).

The Llewelyn Moss role had originally been offered to the late Heath Ledger (1979-2008), but he eventually declined the part, preferring to take some vacation time instead.

Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss

No Country for Old Men Filmed in New Mexico and West Texas

Budgeted at $25 million, No Country for Old Men was filmed on location in New Mexico and Texas. The Desert Sands Motor Hotel in Albuquerque and Big Bend National Park in Texas were used to great effect, with Garson Studios at the College of Santa Fe serving as the film’s in-house production facility.

The production also traveled to Marfa, Texas, where the 1956 James Dean movie Giant had been principally filmed. Shooting nearby was another Texas oil movie in the same vein as Giant, There Will Be Blood (2007), starring Daniel Day-Lewis.  

No Country for Old Men: A Drug Deal Gone Bad

Set in 1980, No Country for Old Men opens with Vietnam War vet Llewelyn Moss stumbling across a drug deal that has gone horribly wrong. Spread out is the aftermath: the dead bodies of the main players, some of whom are still clutching their weapons, one barely alive Mexican survivor in a pickup truck who asks for “agua” (water), a truck full of Mexican brown heroin and a satchel loaded with nearly $2 million in cash.

Sensing his big opportunity, Moss snatches the satchel and heads home to his rundown trailer where he stashes the cash. He later returns to the drug deal site after dark, where three men in a pickup truck surprise him and give pursuit. Escaping the men and their attack dog, Moss returns home once again, telling his wife to head to her mother’s place while he flees with the satchel.

Now taking up Moss’ trail is sociopath hitman Anton Chigurh and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Chigurh is tracking Moss via an electronic device secretly tucked into a wad of bills. Also in the mix are Mexican drug dealers and another paid assassin named Carson Wells, who has been hired by an investor to take out Chigurh.

Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell

No Country for Old Men Release, Reviews

No Country for Old Men was first seen at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007. The movie opened in the United States on a limited basis on November 9, 2007.

“No Country for Old Men…is bleak, scary and relentlessly violent. At its center is a figure of evil so calm, so extreme, so implacable that to hear his voice is to feel the temperature in the theater drop,” reported A.O. Scott of The New York Times (11/9/07).

“This movie is a masterful evocation of time, place, character, moral choices, immoral certainties, human nature and fate. It is also, in the photography by Roger Deakins, the editing by the Coens and the music by Carter Burwell, startlingly beautiful, stark and lonely,” observed Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times (11/8/07).

Film Analysis: No Country for Old Men – Drugs, Cash and Extreme Violence

The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is far better than Cormac McCarthy’s novel, though much of the dialog was taken directly from the book. McCarthy’s writing style, for those who haven’t read him, is unorthodox and oftentimes agonizingly simple, which can put off some readers who were maybe expecting Ernest Hemingway.

The story is a wild one, with trailer park resident Josh Brolin happening on $2 million in cash and a truckload of packaged heroin in the middle of nowhere. Brolin excels in the role, scooping up the money, but later returning for some inexplicable reason later that night where he is shot at and pursued by a pit bull. Brolin heads to the water, with the swimming dog hot on his tail. Reaching land, Brolin is able to insert a fresh clip into his automatic pistol and get off one fatal shot just as the dog furiously hurls itself through the air. 

Tommy Lee Jones ably plays the old, weather-beaten county sheriff, whose days in law enforcement are nearing an end. One of the best performances comes from Javier Bardem, employing a bad 1970s hairdo and robocop demeanor as the cold-blooded hitman Anton Chigurh. Bardem is apparently “hit happy,” as he blows out locks with his cattle gun and wastes a number of people with his silencer-equipped weaponry.

Woody Harrelson portrays a Vietnam vet named Carson Wells who is hired to take out the troublesome Chigurh. The Wells character really isn’t much, however, an “aw shucks” kind of guy who apparently isn’t even packing heat when the Lurch-like Chigurh surprises him at his hotel. Pop! and Wells is history as the viewer only sees his recliner chair explode into puffs of debris.

No Country for Old Men is brimming with violence – both seen and unseen. But after a while, it’s all in a day’s work, as the plodding, principled Anton Chigurh might view it.

Oscar winner Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh

No Country for Old Men Box Office, Academy Award Nominations, DVD

• No Country for Old Men grossed $74.283 million at the American box office, earning the #36 position on the list of the top moneymaking films of 2007.
• Oscar nominations: Best Picture (won), Best Director (won), Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Screenplay (won), Best Film Editing, Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem, won).
• On DVD: No Country for Old Men (Paramount, 2007).

“Do you have any idea how crazy you are?” Carson Wells asks Chigurh.

Unfortunately, Wells soon gets his answer…