No Country for Old Men

Long before I fell in love with the movies, I gave my heart to words. I am first and foremost a reader - and a serious one - and I DO consider Cormac McCarthy to be the American Shakespeare. His classic stuff is hard work to read, and worth every bit of the effort; however his latest offerings have been much more accessible to the average joe - his story lines more linear, his prose less poetic. No Country for Old Men may have been his most mainstream novel yet and was an engaging and fairly quick read, despite Cormac's disdain for punctuation.

Even so, the Coen Brothers had a Herculean task adapting this for the screen; did a fine job and won an Oscar for their efforts. This is a story about violent men doing what they do best and not for the faint of heart. When Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) comes across a nasty bit of mayhem in the desert chock full of corpses, drugs and cash, he opts to take the money. He considers himself a tough hombre, but he knows good and well that someone is going to come after that money. He just didn't bet on who.

The who won Javier Bardem a Best Supporting for playing the most believable sociopath recently on film. Tommy Lee Jones comes in as the savvy lawman and Woody Harrelson has a moment as another yet another violent type, but Bardem makes the picture, bad haircut and all. I followed the plot just fine despite the Bros. Grim leaving out chunks of story, but I read the book; must have been harder for those not up on McCarthy and unprepared for the sheer volume of killin'. The Coens' took home statuettes for Best Picture and Director as well as Adapted Screenplay. They probably deserved the latter just for attempting McCarthy. Don't know if I would have given them the other two. See the nifty website here.