LOVERS of dark, intelligent humour and gore rejoice, this week sees the release of the latest Coen Brothers picture No Country For Old Men.

A brooding thriller based on the 2003 novel by Cormac McCarthy, the prolific siblings transport us to the mesquite landscapes of New Mexico for a dead-end tale of devil incarnates and wasted lives.

When the life-hardened Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon an abandoned horde of cocaine and two million dollars in cash, he grabs his chance, the suitcase of green and scarpers.

Unfortunately for him, maniacal serial killer Anton Chigurh is hot on his tail. Chigurh is a man who tosses coins to decide whether or not he kills people with his compressed air canister. And so it seems that Moss has landed himself in a spot of bother. Now he has to keep running.

On the surface, No Country is a cross-border chase between Moss, Chigurh and Tommy Lee Jones' ageing Sheriff Tom Bell. There are car chases aplenty and enough hardcore violence to make Quentin Tarantino blush.

But despite its demi blockbuster exterior, No Country runs much deeper into the psyche. Like many of the Coens' other films, there is an ambiguous, dreamlike quality to it all and this means that different people will take different things away. Key to the theme though, is that oft-explored fascination of the two brothers - the existence of pure evil.

The arsenal of acting talent here is something quite special; the perfect palette to paint the Coens' picture of gluttonous violence and rock-dry wit.

Javier Bardem's Chigurh - a nightmarish, glassy-eyed hulk of psychopath with a haircut almost as frightening as his mindset, is breathtaking.

Tommy Lee Jones, meanwhile, resounds with a warm but defeated nonchalance, and is notably redolent of Marge Gunderson in 1996's Fargo.

Certainly the most noteworthy piece of casting is that of Glaswegian actress Kelly MacDonald. Perhaps still most famous for that goal scoring' scene with Ewan MacGregor in 1996's Trainspotting, here she eschews her Celtic roots to adopt the admirably convincing West Texan brogue of Llewelyn's devoted wife, Carla Jean.

The film's finest performance however, comes from Woody Harrelson as the dazzlingly sarcastic bounty hunter Carson Welles. His demise, alas, is all too soon.

Atop of the acting talent and a beautiful script is Roger Deakins' intense cinematography. You can almost feel the dust of the plains rasp at the back of your throat and smell the browning fustiness of those dismal motel rooms in which characters plot, hide or get spattered against the walls. It's sparse, laconic cinema punctuated with sharp dialogue; something the Coens have long thrived on.

Because there are three leading parts to the story, the audience empathy is perhaps spread rather thinly. But this would seem to be intentional. No doubt Joel and Ethan Coen revel in making their audiences feel uneasy without always knowing precisely why they do.

The Coens are two filmmakers who can't help but fidget. From time to time this means that they will miss the mark (Intolerable Cruelty comes to mind).

But just like Bardem's soulless killer with his canister, No Country For Old Men never fails to hit its target.

  • See it at the Odeon.