Cannes. No Country for Old Men.

Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men is "an obviously brilliant action thriller that's been made with such exactitude and smart-guy expertise, and is so full of meditative sadnesses and poetic strokes, and which exists on a plane so far above your typical drug-money, hired-gun-on-the-prowl bloody crime pic that [it's] beyond my descriptive powers at this point," gasps Jeffrey Wells. "The damn thing is just staggering."

"[N]othing short of brilliant," agrees Charles Ealy at the Austin Movie Blog. "It's by far the most violent Coen brothers film ever, surpassing the deadpan tree-shredding of bodies in Fargo. And it marks a return of the Coens to Texas, where they set their first feature film, Blood Simple. Like that movie, No Country delights in the unusual minor characters who pop up in scene after scene. You hate to see them gunned down, but you know it's coming, just like a biblical plague."

Online viewing tip. Solace in Cinema has a 3½-minute promo reel.

Updates, 5/19: "A scorching blast of tense genre filmmaking shot through with rich veins of melancholy, down-home philosophy and dark, dark humor," revels Variety's Todd McCarthy. "Cormac McCarthy's bracing and brilliant novel is gold for the Coen brothers... [who] are back on top of their game after some less than stellar outings. While brandishing the brothers' customary wit and impeccable craftsmanship, pic possess the vitality and invention of top-drawer 1970s American filmmaking, quite an accomplishment these days. It's also got one of cinema's most original and memorable villains in recent memory, never a bad thing in attracting an audience, especially as so audaciously played by Javier Bardem." And Tommy Lee Jones "would practically seem to have been born to play Cormac McCarthy roles, and he proves it here."

"The often brutal cat-and-mouse game that ensues between the two characters [played by Bardem and Josh Brolin] affords the Coens the opportunity to create some of the most imaginative and excruciating suspense set pieces of their, or anybody else's, career," writes Premiere's Glenn Kenny. "There's some mind-blowing stuff going on here." Then: "It turns ruminant, elides what some might consider major high points of the story, and goes for something more deeply elegiac than anything the filmmakers have ever attempted before.... I've got a feeling I may be calling Country a full-fledged masterpiece after I catch it a second time. Or maybe even before then."

Time's Richard Corliss: "Joel Coen says this is 'about as close as we'll ever get to an action movie.' On that count, and for most of the film, No Country delivers, with suspense scenes as taut as they are acutely observed." Then there's that twist: "As a Cannes critic, I accept their right to undercut expectations; I hereby validate their modernist parking ticket. But there's enough of a movie kid left in me that I'd like to see this almost-great effort not go bust at the end, but climax in a great big bloody BOOM!"

"Truly fantastic," writes Matt Dentler. "[T]he film rolls along like those West Texas towns (it was shot primarily in Marfa) where nothing much happens until the day where all hell breaks loose."

"The Coens' typically superior filmmaking sustains the electrifying mood for most of the picture, but they are undone by being too faithful to the source novel by Cormac McCarthy," argues Ray Bennett in the Hollywood Reporter.

"We go to see No Country For Old Men and are promptly knocked on our arses," writes Xan Brooks in his diary for the Guardian. "Midway through, I had this down as the brothers' best film since The Big Lebowski. By the end I was wondering if it might not be their masterpiece."

"The elegiac evocation of a changing American heartland in moral meltdown is deftly handled but there are reservations about pacing and balance that prevent the film from achieving the greatness that sometimes seems within its grasp," argues Allan Hunter in Screen Daily.

"This is a completely gripping nihilistic thriller, a model of impeccably constructed, implacable storytelling," writes Kenneth Turan, who talks with the Coens for the Los Angeles Times. "All you could hope for in a marriage of the Coen brothers and McCarthy, it's a film that you can't stop watching, even though you very much wish you could as it escorts you through a world so horrifically bleak 'you put your soul at hazard,' as one character says, to be part of it."

Updates, 5/20: "Despite being their first literary adaptation, Old Men is as close as they've ever come to recapturing Blood Simple's virtuoso atmosphere of indolent mayhem," writes Mike D'Angelo at ScreenGrab. "It's the rare movie so moment-to-moment riveting that you're sometimes in danger of forgetting to breathe."

"Afterward the applause seemed strangely sparse," notes Emmanuel Burdeau of Cahiers after one screening. "But no, it is logical that the Coens leave their audience in shock; their fatalism has no 'Action!' nor 'The End' - it is up to each one of us to find in it consolation or condemnation."

"Consider the movie another coup for producer Scott Rudin, who is said to have willed it into being," blog the Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Kilday.

"No Country for Old Men is a morality tale written in blood and muzzle flashes, but all of the shock and power in the close-quarters lunge and rush of it can't hide that it's also a serious, thoughtful work of art that lies uneasy in your mind long after it's stirred your blood," writes Cinematical's James Rocchi. "The film may have headlong gun battles down dark alleys and range across borders in as the characters follow each other through the West, but what it really explores is the human soul: How we live, how we die, what we regret, what we fear."

Anne Thompson sees "a strong Oscar run."

"[A]n undisputed masterpiece that impresses on any number of levels," declares Emanuel Levy.

Charles Ealy adds lots of quotage from Brolin and Bardem.

"While mostly entertaining (particularly an early chase scene with a Rottweiler), the Coens, and others, have traversed this road before," writes Anthony Kaufman at indieWIRE. "Chasing a bag of money, of course, is no original conceit and the film's ultimate message - that one can't escape one's fate - only travels so far."

"We would never have guessed that Cormac McCarthy's laconic fatalism would combine so well with the brothers detached genre sensibilities, but here it is — a dark thriller laced with darker humor that unravels to reveal something greater, wiser and regretful," writes Alison Willmore at the IFC Blog, where she pronounces this one the Coens' best. Ever.

Updates, 5/21: "Faithful to both the mood and the language of Mr McCarthy's book, it is well made without being ostentatious in its virtuosity: stark, lean (in spite of a two-hour running time) and plenty mean," writes AO Scott in the New York Times.

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw: "This grisly caper turns cynical in its final act on the question of whether crime pays: it's an uncompromising, even magnificent rebuke to those hoping for some sort of feelgood pay-off. And the images captured by British cinematographer Roger Deakins are delectable."

"[S]pare, fatalistic and magnificently composed," writes Patrick Z McGavin for Stop Smiling. "The source novel imposes a structural clarity on [the Coens'] work, one that is sometimes absent from their other work; the condescension and superiority they often hold toward their characters is finally obliterated."

"With this outstanding cast - Jones is at his best, and Brolin is a revelation - and impressively bleak photography, this has the potential to be a breakout hit," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "On the other hand, American audiences are not known for tolerating genre thrillers that decompose, 70s style, into existential anomie. No Country for Young Men is a tricky one; I want to see it again before reaching a final conclusion."

Updates, 5/22: For the NYT, AO Scott talks with the Coens: MP3.

Online viewing tip. Five more clips.

"[W]ithout a doubt, their best since "The Big Lebowski," admits Dennis Lim for IFC News, but: "It's also shaping up as the most overrated film of the festival. The Coens have fully exploited the cinematic potential of McCarthy's tense, tersely described action sequences, but they've also exacerbated the book's tonal problems and questionable politics (i.e., its apparently face-value conservatism)."

"[U]ndoubtedly one of the finest films we've so far seen in Cannes this year," writes Time Out's Geoff Andrew. "[I]f the openness of the film's later scenes do leave one feeling that it's not like your average genre movie, maybe that's not such a bad thing anyway. After all, the Coens' films have always been notable for their ambitions, audacity and idiosyncrasy, and this is certainly no exception."

The Guardian's Andrew Pulver divides the Coen oeuvre into Before and After Fargo; the problem with the latter half, he proposes, has been the A-list casts.

Updates, 5/23: For the City Pages, Rob Nelson asks the Coens about Bardem's character.

Hannah Eaves, writing for PopMatters, finds it "both the perfect activator and antidote to the violence of the films surrounding it.... If you are worried about the times you live in, and the time of life you face, No Country for Old Men will touch heavily on your fears."

The Guardian's Charlotte Higgins has the latest on the Coens' next projects.

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Cannes @ 60. Index.

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Posted by dwhudson at May 18, 2007 4:22 PM