No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-western neo-noir thriller film
Synopsis[]
Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.
Plot[]
In Texas, 1980, hitman Anton Chigurh strangles a deputy sheriff to escape custody and uses a captive bolt pistol to kill a driver and steals his car. He spares the life of a gas station owner after the owner accepts a challenge and successfully guesses the result of Chigurh's coin flip.
Hunting pronghorns in the desert, Llewelyn Moss comes across the aftermath of a drug deal gone awry. He finds several dead men and dogs, a wounded Mexican begging for water, and two million dollars in a briefcase. He takes the money and returns home. That night, Moss returns to the scene with water. He is pursued by two men in a truck and escapes. At home, he sends his wife, Carla Jean, to stay with her mother, then drives to a motel in Del Rio, where he hides the case in the air conditioning duct of his room.
Chigurh, hired to recover the money, kills his employers after obtaining a clue to Moss's identity. Arriving to search Moss's home, he uses his bolt pistol to blow the lock out of the door. Investigating the break in, Sheriff Tom Bell notices the blown-out lock. Using a tracking device hidden with the money, Chigurh goes to Moss's motel and kills a group of Mexicans who are preparing to ambush Moss in his room. Moss has rented a second room adjacent to the Mexicans' room with access to the duct where the money is hidden. He retrieves the briefcase just before Chigurh opens the duct and finds it empty.
While staying at a hotel in Eagle Pass, Moss discovers the tracking device, but Chigurh has already found him. Their firefight spills onto the streets and both are wounded. Moss flees to Mexico, stashing the case of money in weeds along the Rio Grande. Severely injured, he asks for help from some musicians, who take him to a hospital. Carson Wells, another hired operative, fails to persuade him to accept protection in return for the money. Chigurh cleans and stitches his own wounds with stolen supplies and kills Wells at his hotel. Moss telephones the room and Chigurh answers. Chigurh tells Moss that he will kill Carla Jean unless Moss gives up the money; he remarks that he will kill Moss regardless of whether he receives the money.
Moss retrieves the case and arranges to meet Carla Jean at a motel in El Paso, where he plans to give her the money and hide her from danger. Instead, she reluctantly accepts protection for her husband from Sheriff Bell. Carla Jean's mother unwittingly reveals Moss's location to a group of Mexicans who have been tailing them. Bell reaches the rendezvous in time to hear gunshots and see a pickup truck speeding from the motel where Moss lies dead.
That night, Bell returns to the crime scene and finds the lock blown out. Chigurh hides behind the door. Bell enters Moss's room and sees that the vent has been removed and the duct is empty. Later, Bell visits his uncle Ellis, an ex-lawman, and tells him he plans to retire because he feels "over-matched". Ellis points out that the region has always been violent.
Carla Jean returns from her mother's funeral to find Chigurh waiting in her bedroom. She refuses his offer of a coin toss for her life, stating that the choice is his own. Chigurh leaves the house and carefully checks the soles of his boots. As he drives through town, he is injured in a car accident, bribes two young witnesses for their silence, and flees.
Now retired, Bell shares two dreams with his wife. In the first, he lost some money his father had given him. In the other, he and his father were riding through a snowy mountain pass; his father had gone ahead to make a fire in the darkness and wait for Bell.
Cast[]
Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh.
Tommy Lee Jones as Sherrif Ed Tom Bell.
Josh Brolin as Lleweyln Moss.
Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells.
Kelly MacDonald as Carla Jean Moss
Barry Corbin as Ellis.