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| Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Actors: Javier Bardem, Rodger Boyce, Josh Brolin, Barry Corbin, Beth Grant
Studio: Miramax
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $5.68
You Save: $24.31 (81%)
New (55) Used (51) Collectible (1) from $5.68
Rating:  615 reviews
Sales Rank: 322
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 122 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.6
MPN: DISD55640D
UPC: 786936746754
EAN: 0786936746754
ASIN: B00118T63C
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: March 11, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: DVD is in acceptable condtion. Some scratches; has been TESTED & PLAYS FINE. 100% guaranteed against defects. Contact us within 7 days if there is any defect, and we will gladly refund your purchase. Our standard shipping method is USPS Media Mail.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Despicable Snuff Film Being Sold as "Serious Art" December 21, 2007
Danusha Goska (Bloomington, IN)
33 out of 94 found this review helpful
"No Country for Old Men" is for the kind of film fan who remarks, "Gee, wasn't that murder a clever mise-en-scene?" and who asks, "What kind of lens do you think they used in that strangulation shot?"
The skeleton of "No Country for Old Men" is a cheap, 78-minute, gun-monster-chase B movie. Javier Bardem plays Anton Chigurh, the monster. He is Frankenstein; he is Max Cady from "Cape Fear;" he is from your childhood nightmares. He may be death personified.
One of many completely implausible scenes: an arresting officer, defying any logic, turns his back on Chigurh. Chigurh, displaying the supple sinuosity of a Cirque du Soleil contortionist, or an orangutan, slips out of his handcuffs. This is done out of camera view, because for Bardem it would be impossible; thus the scene's implausibility. Chigurh then, in real time, strangles the young police officer to death on camera. This is an extended sequence. This is the payoff for "No Country for Old Men": watching one human being kill other human beings, in scene after scene after scene, using various weapons, including a captive bolt pistol usually used on livestock. Guess Chigurh couldn't get hold of a Texas chainsaw. This is a slasher flick for the pretentious.
Early on, there are well-done, if standard, chase scenes. A man outruns a car: not believable, but fun to watch. A pit bull chases this fleeing man down a whitewater river. The man reloads his gun at the very last moment (of course) and shoots the pit bull dead just as it is about to sink its teeth into the man. Later, in a hotel, a beeping transponder informs the killer where his prey hides. Your pulse may race and you may think that this is all leading up to something interesting. You will be disappointed.
Tommy Lee Jones, whose ear lobes appear to be metastasizing as he ages, wanders aimlessly through the film as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, delivering cornpone, homespun, cowboy poet ruminations that are more or less opaque in meaning. No doubt the film's fans are even now feverishly compiling a companion volume that decodes Bell's dreams and conveys their depth.
Woody Harrelson, late the bartender of the TV sitcom "Cheers," shows up for a completely pointless half-hour role that yanks the viewer right out of the movie. "What is Woody Harrelson doing here?"
Some years back, some bored English majors decided that conventional narrative structure was not intellectual enuf, and decided to play games with narrative. "No Country for Old Men" plays these sorts of games. The viewer is invited to invest time getting to know characters who are eliminated from the plot in ways that convey no meaning and are not moving. The narrative flow is truncated and yet the movie keeps going; viewers ask themselves why the movie is continuing -- sometimes out loud, even in a movie theater -- this is supposed to be a deep, intellectual experience. It is not. It is merely annoying.
Other than bratty English major head games, pretty much the entire substance of "No Country for Old Men" is a series of murders and tortures committed by Chigurh, who may symbolize your high school's worst bully - a bully so terrifying exactly because he targeted English majors. His victims are often courteous; their likability makes watching them be humiliated and then murdered an uncomfortable, and, given the film's structure, ultimately pointless exercise. Not only are the Coen Brothers torturing their characters, they also torment their ticket-buying audiences.
Chigurh's nice victims are often poor, rural, Southern, whites, the kind of people often not featured as positive, lead characters in Hollywood entertainments. They are often villains - witness films like "Deliverance." Here they are murder victims. Chigurh is associated with Mexicans, part of a rising "dismal tide," as one Anglo character puts it. No matter how you feel about immigration, you may find this association of Mexicans with a rising tide of evil to be offensive.
The film's boosters insist that the movie offers three deep and shocking lessons: life doesn't always follow a neat narrative structure; evil often triumphs; and the old days were more peaceful and, nowadays, things are getting really bad. In truth, everyone walking in to the theater already knows the first two "lessons." No one needs the Coen brothers to inform him that life doesn't always follow a neat narrative structure, or that evil often triumphs. We expect filmmakers, and all artists, to offer us a more substantial thesis. As for the third "lesson," that the old days were more peaceful and things are getting really bad today -- have the Coens, or Cormac McCarthy, heard of Attila the Hun, or any number of other less-than-peaceful and courteous personages from our common human past?
One might well be dubious about "No Country"'s "lessons." Visit internet discussion boards devoted to this movie, and you will find fans asking, not "What is fate?" or "What is the role of a good man in a bad world?" but questions like, "If Hannibal Lector and Anton Chigurh were locked in a room, who would come out alive?" Given such reflections, one is safe in concluding that the appeal of this film is its emphasis on graphic violence, rather than on any more advanced intellectual or artistic merit.
 A classic. Plain and simple. December 20, 2007
DanD
111 out of 167 found this review helpful
You hear the phrase "daring film-making" tossed around like a beach ball these days; someone kills off a main character, it's "daring" and "original" and should be nominated for 20 Oscars. If you want to know what "daring film-making" really is, stick around 'til the end of "No Country For Old Men." Not that you'll have much trouble--you'll be glued to your seat the entire time. Probably shaking in terror and anticipation.
Here's the premise, and I'll sum it up quickly: a man finds a satchel containing 2 million dollars and then hits the road, persued by a psycopathic hitman and a haven't-seen-it-all-yet-apparently sheriff. If that summary of the plot doesn't suit your purposes, then just go see the movie. It's not about plot anyways. The plot is good, the plot is interesting and great...but it's not about plot.
It's about acting. It's about cinemetography. It's about script. It's about Josh Brolin putting you on edge and yet getting your sympathy vote; it's about Tommy Lee Jones giving the performance of his career; it's about Javier Bardem creeping you the [bleep] out. Hell, even Woody Harrelson, in his too-brief role, proves he's more than a funny man. The main star is, of course, Texas--beautiful, rugged, majestic, and eerily terrifying. The dialogue is brisk when it needs to be, thoughtful when it's called for, and always engaging. There are two scenes that rank as the most suspensful I've ever seen: the scene where Brolin's character is sitting in the dark of his hotel room, waiting for Bardem's character to make his move; and the scene where Jones's character enters the hotel room near the end. Both scenes left me shaking in my seat, sweating, scared and rivetted. I don't think that's ever happened before--at least not twice in one movie.
A word on the ending. I went to see this with a buddy of mine. On our way home from the theater, we talked about nothing but the ending of the movie (eventually we got around to "Cheers" and began bashing Ted Danson and praising Danny de Vito, but that's neither here nor there). The plain and simple fact is, it works. I mentioned "daring film-making" at the beginning of this review. To me, "daring" is when a film-maker stays true to the movie, to what needs to be done for the sake of art. The Coen Brothers, more than anybody else out there, do that; and they have never done it better than with "No Country For Old Men." So casual viewers beware: you may leave the movie feeling unfulfilled, like something is missing. And you will probably have nightmares afterwards. But that just goes to show how effective "No Country For Old Men" is. It's a classic. See it, and you'll understand my reasoning. Or don't see it and miss out on a truly original cinema experience.
Pick The Right Theatre To See This Film December 19, 2007
H. F. Corbin (ATLANTA, GA USA)
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
A new Coen Brothers film is always something to look forward to, even if what you are seeing is not these film-makers at their best. "No Country For Old Men" from a line from the poet William Butler Yeats-- adapted from a book by the same title by Cormac McCarthy-- is certainly one of their finest. From the opening panoramic shots of the arid countryside to the excellent casting--to a person-- to the abrupt, existential ending, this movie delivers. Both Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss, the Vietnam veteran who discovers the drug money), and Jommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Bell, give rugged understated performances. Javier Bardem as Chigurh, the crazed mysterious henchman who kills for the delight of it, steals the show, however. An Iago type character, he is the epitome of evil. He kills when his own life is not in danger, if we assume that killing is justified if one's life as a hunter of other humans is in jeopardy.
If you see this movie in a theatre, try to select one that shows art films. I made the mistake of seeing "No Country For Old Men" in one of those theatres, that run 25 or 30 movies at the same time, situated of course in the obligatory shopping mall. Although there was only a handful of people watching the movie when I saw it, they made up for scarce attendance by laughing through most of the movie as dark and serious as anything I'e seen lately. The couple behind me talked througout the entire film and expressed their surprise and displeasure at the ending. I'd like to see this one again but only when it is released on DVD.
A Triumph December 17, 2007
Sean (Aurora, Colorado)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
No Country for old man is centered primarily on two people. There's Llewellyn Moss (We're gonna call him Lew for the rest of this review) who happens to come across a bunch of trucks and a people who have been gunned down. Something has gone horribly wrong here. There are bullets strewn about, guns being clutched in dead hands. This was not your typical meeting. He then stumbles across someone who happens to be alive. There's really no saving the guy in the truck, though. He's bleeding but is requesting water. There's nothing Lew can really do for the guy so he takes his gun and clip. We later see him stumble upon another dead guy clutching a hand gun. Lew decides to take that too. But this guy is holding the jackpot. A case full of two million dollars cash!
Lew keeps it, not knowing the real danger he's in. Life for him and his wife Carla (Kelly MacDonald) is going to change. Lew eventually goes back to the scene. Unfortunately when there's a crime scene, someone who committed the crime is bound to come back too. And while Lew is snooping around, someone does and they're very angry.
Lew manages to escape with his life and decides he and Carla need to get someplace safe.
But there's much more for Lew to fear. He's about to learn there's one guy you just don't want to mess with. His name is Chigurh (Javier Bardem). A ruthless killer who will kill you for the simple fact of inconveniencing him. The two million dollars is his and he'll stop it nothing to get his money back including killing anyone and everyone that gets in his way. If Lew wants to keep the money he found, he'll have to evade Chigurh and keep one step ahead of him. But there are a few things Lew doesn't count on.
And in the midst of all this, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is on the trail of Chigurh. The movie centers mainly on Lew trying to evade the merciless killer as he tries to get his money. And when I say he lays waste to anyone in his way, I'm not kidding. It's a fantastic movie with an ending you won't see coming.
The way it is done is pretty good. There's a lot of silence... that isn't accompanied by any music whatsoever. It not only made the movie scary, but intense. There are many moments when you'll jump. Many moments when your heart will be racing as you watch. There's so much suspense you won't know what to do with it. Almost everything that happens is quite shocking and surprising.
But the best thing about this movie is Chiguhr and Javier Bardem. He's the real treat as he plays the killer with little (if any) emotion at all. A true psychopath.
There was nothing really disappointing about the movie. It isn't overly long, and even if it was, you don't feel it passing by because you're so absorbed into the story. Because it's dark, scary, and unpredictable at every turn. Each passing moment is a moment spent wondering what's going to happen next. This is easily one of the best films of the year. One of the darkest and scariest as well. The deadpan silences and lack of music only intensify the feeling.
No Country For Old Men is easily one of the best movies of 2007. If the Academy doesn't recognize its brilliance, they should be ashamed of themselves.
 Excellent Acting and Direction December 17, 2007
Happy Chappy (Elk Grove, California)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
First and foremost, this sure is not a feel good movie. It is a violent and rugged movie about the world of drugs and money. What this movie is; however, is an incredibly well-acted and absorbing film. There is rarely a suspense-free or tension-less moment. The movie, featuring excellent direction by the Cohen brothers, stars Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and the downright spooky Javier Bardem. Woody Harrelson is also one of the stars. There is no need to spend time discussing the plot as that has been done several times already. This movie is worth seeing for the fine acting and directing, as well as the gritty realism of Texas and Mexico. The three primary actors - Brolin, Bardem, and Jones - are each excellent. I expect that we will see a lot more of Brolin. This movie is not for everyone, but for those looking for a great movie with great acting, I highly recommend this 4 star film.
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