Coming off of both The Ladykillers and that disavowed film with Clooney, the Coens may have been looking to ditch the comedic flair so prevalent in its work. Of course, most of what the team is known for is its oddly amusing characters and the stultifying situations each finds themselves in. The biggest commercial success the Coens scored served up at least a modicum of laughs, even if those came at unsettling scenes as evidenced by watching Fargo and finally understanding it as the filmic equivalent to Evelyn Waugh’s take on the death industry in The Loved Ones. Crafting a story so void of humor – even as Trainspotting’s Kelly Macdonald seemed capable of levying a few off the cuff Texas-isms for the sake of levity – some critics have figured the Coens to have entered a stage in their careers that counts as being mature.

That’s debatable. There’s still a great deal of blood and violence simply for the sake of blood and violence as opposed to fleshing out characters. How many times do viewers need to watch Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh character shoot someone with that pressurized bolt gun before we ‘get’ his character? Whatever the answer is, there a few more killings after that number is reached.

Not to slight the endless gallons of blood spilled over the course of the film, but at two hours long, the film could have benefited from a bit of judicious editing.

Part of what makes No Country such a somber and disturbing film is Tommy Lee Jones in the part of county sheriff, who doubles as the film’s narrator continuing a tradition of voice over in the Coen’s work. This film begins in roughly the same fashion as The Big Lebowski as viewers first hear – but don’t see – Jones’ character opining on the law enforcement game, how its changed, but how he hasn’t managed to change with it. In some ways, the entire film seems to be a mediation on living anachronisms. Jones’ charter is an old tymey one as is Bardem’s as well as Brolin’s. Each might do better in a border town during the early twentieth century.

Adding to the film’s bleakness is the lack of music. Over the Coen’s career their soundtracks have done as well, if not in some cases, better than the film it accompanies. There are certainly folks who don’t really care about O Brother save for the fact that it momentarily resurrected bluegrass in the eyes of pop culture.

But the lack of a proper score and an accompanying soundtrack works to better No Country. In a world, which we’re supposed to believe is the one we inhabit thanks to those Jones voice-overs, that produces such a character as Chigurh, things should seem endlessly awful. And while the mastery of the frame, here rendered by the Coens’ steadfast collaborator Roger Deakins, is bleak and intimidating, especially as Brolin’s character roams the desert, the muted colors should reveal themselves as beautiful as that last plaid shirt you found at the thrift store for two bucks and wear endlessly.