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Southwest Texan Llewelyn Moss stumbles across a drug deal gone deadly, leaving both drugs and cash behind. Seizing an opportunity, Moss grabs the scratch and heads home, but makes a mistake by heading back to help a fatally wounded man in the middle of the night; more drug runners show up shortly after and chase him off.

Unfortunately for Moss, cattle gun-wielding hitman Anton Chigurh (pronounced Sugar) arrives in town and, like a bloodhound, quickly sniffs out Llewelyn’s identity for an unnamed group that may or may not be the Dixie Mafia. The two begin a devastating cat and mouse game which leaves local sheriff Ed Tom Bell to follow the pair’s bloody trail across the state. Bell is always one step behind Chigurh, only adding to his own inferiority complex at being unable to live up to his family’s legacy.

No Country for Old Men is not what you think. Abandon any preconceptions that you have, and you might actually like Joel and Ethan Coen’s tour de force. This isn’t Die Hard or some other romper stomper actioner; it’s slow, it’s tense, it’s bloody, it’s base human horror, but, above all, it’s quiet and introspective.

Underused actor Josh Brolin takes an honest and believable turn as Moss, but his is a two-dimensional role that requires only a small swath of an actor’s toolkit. For most of the movie, Tommy Lee Jones as Ed Bell doesn’t exactly step out of his usual Tommy Lee Jones-thing but by the end Jones’ face is written with the pain of Chigurh’s atrocities and his own unsatisfying life. Unfortunately for the trophy cases of both Brolin and Jones, Javier Bardem blows them away as the Two-Face-like psychopath Chigurh, who is among the most satisfying villains of all time. But then, villains and psychotics usually are the most compelling characters, from Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.

The Coen Brothers took a compelling hand with the film. Never one to rest on their directing laurels, the boys have punched many style notches in their directing belts. Unlike most of their films, there’s little humor in No Country but, as usual, what’s there is quirky and memorable, like little bits of Raising Arizona. And, where O Brother Where Art Thou was practically a musical, No Country is its polar opposite: there is no soundtrack. Much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s “The Body,” the absence is its own plot device, increasing the horror of true, blunt violence instead of reducing its impact with swells and strains.

The extras on the DVD are scarce and run of the mill. A “Making Of” covers in brief all aspects of making the movie from casting to make-up, while a second looks at working with Joel and Ethan Coen from the perspective of long running Coen-crew members. It’s sweet without being syrupy, but feels unneeded. Finally “Diary of a Small-Town Sheriff” looks at the character of Ed Tom Bell and his role in the movie. Like the Coen tribute it’s a bit of fluff, but does nothing to really further your understanding of the character.

At first blush, when the last scene cuts to black, frustration might mount at No Country for Old Men because of the barely-there exposition, but like a bad cold it lingers in your head. Hours later, like Ed Bell, you might start to ferret things and truly understand the Coens’ subtext. You’ll either get it or you won’t. 

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