This adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel contains the familiar Coen Brothers’ elements of quiet men and crimes gone wrong, but takes them to a much darker place than ever before; there are few of their trademark comic grotesques to offer relief in the unforgiving gloom of the film’s Texas landscape.
Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) disobeys Movie Rule Number One when he takes a suitcase of money that doesn’t belong to him. The resulting game of cat and mouse moves slowly, but is carried along by sudden bursts of violence. The Coens build squirm-inducing tension from the start, so it is a pity that the audience is betrayed by a low-key ending that means less than it thinks it does.
Uniformly excellent performances from the large cast make up for the few narrative faults, however. Brolin impresses as the principled-yet-greedy protagonist, and Scottish Kelly McDonald manages a flawless Texan drawl whilst sweetly playing his young wife, in what will surely be breakthrough roles for both. Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson ably fill parts made for them, but it is Javier Bardem who will live long in the memory as the psychopath on Brolin’s trail, with a terrifying method of killing his victims and an even scarier haircut.
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