No Country for Old Men

After eating at a Texas-themed restaurant in Silver Spring, we went to the lovely AFI Silver Theater to view Academy Award Best Picture nominee No Country for Old Men yesterday. With less than a fortnight left before the Oscars, I'm in my usual last-minute crush to try to see the nominated films, and thus far, the only thing I'd seen was Sweeney Todd.

No Country for Old Men is set in West Texas, near the Mexican border. It's a gritty tale of the Mexican drug trade and its impact on American society starring Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Javier Bardem. I'm not quite sure how Javier Bardem qualified for his best supporting actor nomination; he seemed a very, very major presence in the movie, so I'd have considered him for best actor, instead.

There is a lot I'd like to say about this movie, but I can't really discuss it without revealing too many plot points. So, I'll simply say the movie reminds me a lot of the genre of French films that don't really have a beginning or an end, but that merely represent a slice of life for the protagonists.

How will it do at the Oscars? I don't know. Sweeney Todd isn't nominated for Best Picture, so I can't compare and contrast yet. It certainly leaves a dramatic impact, though. Some of the violent scenes are filmed in a way so as to avoid gratuitous violence and gore, which is a technique that I always think strengthens a film. I found the little performances of many of the small roles for small town Texas resident characters to be a highlight.

This movie is not suitable for young children, and even for older children, I would want to be sure that they were sufficiently intellectually developed to be able to absorb and consider the moral message of the film.