Director Deep Dive is a chronological look into a director’s filmography to see how they and their works grow and change.

Blessed with a long career, a skilled director eventually has a film where everything comes full circle for them. All the years spent honing their craft and style lead them to a work that puts the various pieces together. For the Coens, that “full circle” movie is No Country for Old Men. It is a culmination of their entire body of work to this point. It is also a much needed return to form for the duo after two subpar works.

No Country is a mostly faithful adaptation of the late, great Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name. Another first for the duo after Miller’s Crossing and O, Brother played with their source material. The story follows the paths of three characters in the desert landscape of 80s West Texas. It all starts when Llewelyn Moss finds a case full of money in a drug deal gone wrong. Soon, he is being pursued by both the cartels and a terrifying hitman named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). On the periphery is Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), an aging sheriff who is investigating the events and trying to grapple with the violence involved.

More than any Coens picture before it, No Country is a film about process. The movie takes time to show us the lengths both Llewelyn and Chigurh go to in their cat-and-mouse game. It is to the Coens credit that these scenes never smother the tension. Instead, the duo takes their love for dramatic irony to new, stress-inducing heights by showing us how each party has planned for the other and how those plans go awry.

The Coens also make sound a vital component in their tension-building. Carter Burwell’s score is absent from large stretches of the film and when it appears it’s almost imperceptible, like in the infamous coin toss sequence. The scene begins with no music, but once Chigurh introduces the coin, a quietly foreboding arrangement enters the mix and ratchets up the tension. Other moments, such as a tense almost encounter between the assassin and his prey, use the sounds of the scene to incite terror. The stomp of boots on the hotel floor and the continuous beep of a transponder heightening the tension to near breaking point. By removing a traditional soundtrack, the duo has removed our understanding of where a scene can go.

The thrills aren’t solely on the soundboard either. Cinematographer Roger Deakins returns for his 9th collaboration with the Coens and provides some of his best work to date. Taking his skills at balancing light and dark tones to new levels, Deakins creates a disquieting atmosphere for the characters. In the daytime, shadows will creep their way into the scene as if to portent the bad times to come. In the night, pools of light appear and disappear to show us what lurks in the dark. The most effective use comes in a pivotal scene where Ed Tom Bell inspects a hotel room he believes contains the answers to this case. The only light comes from the beams of his car, creating an instant sense of dread. That it also harkens back to the Coen’s debut, Blood Simple, and the shot of a body slowly crawling away from the lights of a car is a fun happenstance.

Outside of a small appearance by Stephen Root, No Country features none of the Coens regulars. Instead, the film holds itself together with three distinct but equally impressive performances from some Coens first-timers and a game supporting cast.

Josh Brolin does perhaps the most understated work in the movie as Llewelyn Moss. Moss rarely shows his emotions, but we can see the gears turn as he puts his plans into motion. Brolin projects an air of confidence that feels unearned when put up against the evil that he faces. That he is doomed never seems to occur to him.

As Ed Tom Bell, Tommy Lee Jones gives one of his very best performances. Bell constantly discusses the harshness of today’s world and how things have changed for the worse. Did things really change or has Bell simply aged out of his profession? The movie answers the question with its title, but Jones draws us in to Ed Tom’s slow realization that his time is coming up.

What is there to say about Javier Bardem’s bone-chilling performance that hasn’t already been mentioned ad nauseam? Is Anton Chigurh the embodiment of evil or simply a man with a flawed moral code he uses to justify his work? The Coens have their cake and eat it with that question, but Bardem never allows an ounce of humanity into view. Chigurh is listed as one of the most accurate film portrayals of a psychopath and it is hard to disagree. Chigurh’s cold, emotionless demeanor isn’t an act either, it is his default state. Toward the end of the film, his worldview is called into question and we get the slightest hint of feeling across Bardem’s face. Then, he does his job and checks his shoes on the way out.

No Country became the biggest commercial hit of the Coen’s career to date thanks to its 8 Academy Award nominations. The film earned the Coens wins for directing and adapted screenplay as well as Best Picture. Not bad for what is possibly the bleakest movie in the duo’s filmography. After decades of quality, the Coens finally earned the highest achievement in Hollywood. The weirdo outliers had broken through to the mainstream.

While it isn’t as easy to rewatch as the Coen’s other great films, No Country stands as one of their most expertly crafted. It’s a culmination of everything they’ve learned as directors to this point. A tense ride through the heart of darkness that also serves as a meditation on evil and how powerless we are in the face of it. It is a familiar theme for the brothers, taken to its most cynical point.

Next: The brothers put together an A-list cast for their paranoid take on the spy film, Burn After Reading.

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