Movie Previews

No Country for Old Men – Jonathan Parker

This chilling — not to mention bloody — morality tale is well written, well directed and well performed.

A serial killer chases a man with stolen drug money while a sheriff pursues them in the brilliant and bleak drama No Country for Old Men. Ethan and Joel Coen (O Brother Where Art Thou?, Barton Fink) masterfully deliver a chilling — not to mention bloody — morality tale that is well written, well directed and well performed.

Rural 1980 Texas is a changing place. Not that we necessarily see it, but we’re told it; and clearly our movie’s characters feel it. No one feels it more than smart and grizzled sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), who is on the brink of retirement when a series of murders bloody his dusty county.

Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is out hunting one day when he stumbles across a drug deal turned murder scene, and manages to land a briefcase of money in the process. Per usual, with such briefcases of such large amounts of cash, trouble follows close behind. But Moss is no dummy, and he suspects as much. Not that it matters. Stoic psychopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is the hunter, and everyone in his way is the hunted. Sheriff Bell just tries to cope.

As directors, the Coen brothers execute at their meticulous and exacting best. The way the camera moves and the way each shot is framed manages to mesmerize us while underscoring the import of all matters held within. At the same time, as writers, their dialogue (adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel) — ambling but trimmed back like Texas underbrush — can be both ironic and metaphoric, and we hang on every word.

No less mesmerizing are the performances. Brolin is rugged and quiet like a 1950s’ western movie star. Jones is his usual rock-solid self, perhaps a little slower but just as quick-witted and wise. And Javier Bardem gives us perhaps the scariest and creepiest movie villain since Anthony Hopkins bragged about eating human flesh with a glass of Chianti.

No Country for Old Men is not unlike the Coen brothers 1996 hit Fargo. Our hero is a folksy and clever police investigator, who seems a lifebuoy amongst a sea of mayhem. The Minnesota you betchas are replaced by Texas drawls, and the cold snow is replaced by hot dust. Fargo was funnier, and No Country for Old Men is more poetic. Nonetheless, these two films are quite the kindred spirits, and fans of one will surely fall for the other.

Great drama • R • 122 mins.

The Namesake – Cathy Conway Miller

We grow to care deeply for the characters, and that is the film’s power and success.

Sure, you won’t want to miss the summer blockbusters. But amidst the hoopla, hype and techno thrills at your local multiplex, don’t overlook one of the gems of the season, The Namesake.

Director Mira Nair (Vanity Fair, Monsoon Wedding) has brought to film Jhumpa Lahiri’s popular, Pulitzer-prize winning novel. The result is a beautifully wrought and poignant movie. The film’s universal themes — including the problems inherent to families across the generations, especially those of immigrant families and the struggle for identity of the younger generation — will be easily grasped and embraced by boomers and Gen Xers alike.

The story line follows the touching love story of a traditional Indian couple, brought together through an arranged marriage, as they adjust to their new life together in America and then to the problems of raising children who are more of the new land than of their own tradition. The title of the movie refers to their son’s name, Gogol, which provides a mysterious link to his father’s past and provides the thread linking together the two cultures and generations.

The film shuttles the viewer back and forth in time and place. We are transported from the streets of Calcutta, bustling with exotic sounds and sights and to the gray, snowy streets of a New York winter. Two cultures are skillfully presented — traditional Bengali as well as modern American — and we feel the richer for exposure to both. We feel these are very good and complex people. We grow to care deeply for the characters, and that is the film’s power and success.

The Namesake is the kind of movie you will want to discuss over coffee. You may even contemplate a trip to India — where the family reunites — after the astounding scenes of the Taj Mahal.

Great drama • R • 117 mins.

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