I see a lot of films every year. It’s my thing.

I’ve been in a theater about once a week for about thirteen years now. Doing some quick math, that comes out to 676 films. Now, that’s a lot. There are people out there who probably watch more films than I do, but not that many, I would imagine. And I’ve seen some pretty good films in theaters, not to mention quite a lot of forgettable ones. At least I forgot I’ve seen them.

So it always makes it hard for me when anyone ever asks me what the best film I have seen this year is. I never can answer that question. I just see too many movies to think clearly about a lot of them. Or perhaps I just don’t like absolutes like that. It’s really an apples and oranges, very subjective way of thinking, which I kinda feel is meaningless with this kind of thing. What one person thinks is genius might be utter crap to someone else, and both points of view can be totally valid.

Of course there have been times when I could happily declare what I thought was the best film in a given year. Not that anyone asks me, or cares, but still. I think The Sweet Hereafter was the very best film of 1997 if not the entire decade of the ‘90s. And I don’t remember anything better than Magnolia in 1999 or Trainspotting in 1996. But that’s just me.

Well, I think this is going to be another of those years where I have a clear favorite. Here in the early part of November, I feel good calling it: No Country for Old Men is hands down, the very best film I have seen all year.

Not all that surprising that it comes from the Coen Brothers. I pretty much like most everything they ever do. Okay, their last few have been a bit weak if not kinda bad (The Ladykillers- ugh, what the hell were they thinking?), but at least four of their films are probably what I see as among the very best made in my lifetime. And they were among the handful of filmmakers who helped get the independent film wave of the late eighties-early nineties up to full speed with their classic Blood Simple.

(And Pulp Fiction was NOT part of this. I mention this because I find it so irritating when people think it was. It’s an okay film, but Blood Simple, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and Slacker, to name a few, are much better films and predated it by many years. Pulp Fiction was not the start of anything other than when all the shallow suburban kids first noticed indie films.)

No Country for Old Men is the story of Llewelyn Moss, played perfectly by Josh Brolin, a man of simple means, living in near poverty with his wife in the arid Texas plains in the early eighties. One day Llewelyn comes across the bloody aftermath of a major drug deal gone bad. After a very careful search of the scene, he finds a briefcase filled to the brim with money. Now, Lewelyn is no dummy; he knows that nobody leaves a few million dollars laying around without at least someone coming to look for it. But he sees it as probably his best chance for a better life for both him and his wife, so he takes it, thinking that he’s more than capable to handle whatever problems come his way.

Of course he has no way of knowing that what is coming his way is Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem, in what has to be the best psychotic killer I have seen in a film in years. Chigurh is a total sociopath. He kills like most people scratch an itch, and usually with about the same calm demeanor. The man is methodical, very intelligent, and hell bent on getting his hands on the millions that Llewelyn stole. If he has to kill someone for their car, or just because they ignorantly ask him too many questions, then he does, without thinking twice about it.

The two men bounce about the Texas-Mexico border, Llewelyn just managing to stay one step ahead of not only Chigurh, but some Mexican hired guns also looking for the money, and the local world weary sheriff, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who seems to easily intuit the situation, and does his best to help, even as he knows he’s probably powerless to prevent the inevitable outcome.

This film works in so many ways I don’t even know where to begin. All the acting is great. The above mentioned Bardem especially. Like I said, I have not seen a bad guy done quite like that or done as well as that in a long time. He’s practically cartoonish, what with his funny hair and ghostlike makeup. I mean, his two main weapons are an air gun designed for killing cattle, and a shotgun with a silencer attached, which I’m not even sure is feasible. And it’s accentuated even further because everyone else in this film plays their characters so naturalistically. Chigurh is like an alien from Mars in contrast to everyone else. But even with all that, Bardem is very careful to play it subdued, so he comes off as an odd and frightening madman, and not some kind of ridiculous comic book villain. And I think he nailed it perfectly.

Just like the Coens did. I can imagine just how badly this film could have been in the hands of any lesser filmmakers. Wall to wall fast paced action music, some jackass cocking a gold plated handgun ninety degrees, at least one unnecessary car chase, and of course an obligatory tacked on happy ending of some kind. Thankfully the Coen brothers are far better than any of that.

This movie is sparse, and very calm. There’s no music soundtrack of any kind, and a very slow, methodical pace, that works so beautifully. Even at its most violent and active it never strays far from the methodical pace. I’m so glad that someone out there can still make a film like this and do it right. All that fast paced music video style that you see everywhere these days is way overdone, and frankly kind of boring. No, the Coens use the soft touch on this one. I love the soft touch. Nobody uses the soft touch like this anymore. Not since Leone died at least. It’s the perfect approach for this story, because the locale is empty and desolate, and some foolish fast paced action would have been unnatural. Better to rely on dynamic shot composition, precise editing, and slow down the pace so the audience can let the images sink in before moving on. They don’t pound you over the head with the points, they let you get there on your own with careful and methodical shot selection, so you’re pretty much thinking in your own head exactly what the character is thinking.

The Coens have always shown the ability to do this kind of thing. In all of their films there’s at least one scene like this. But with perhaps the exception of Blood Simple or maybe Barton Fink, they’ve never done it so completely from start to end in a film. And even in those two they didn’t rely on it as heavily as they do here. Like I said before, there’s no music, and the locale is pretty desolate. So the soft touch is really all there is. And in their hands its way more than enough.

So yeah, best film of the year. Hands down. Immediately in the top three Coen brothers films all time. You should all go see it.