Featurettes, interviews, Electronic Press Kit with interviews, "Josh Brolin's Unauthorized Behind-the-Scenes", digital copy of teh film, all the previous featurettes from the single disc edition, "Charlie Rose Show" and "Lunch with David Poland" interviews, podcast

The persistence of evil and how it affects our world, changes our perception of it and forces us to cope with trauma in the post 9/11 world is the focus of the Coen brothers film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. While set in 1980, the film really (like all films set in the past or future) is really about the average person copes in a world where the rules have changed so rapidly its as if the rug of reality has been pulled out from under us. ***

When Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles over the bodies of drug dealers and cash this Vietnam vet realizes that he's hit the mother lode; no one survived and no one will miss the money. Leaving the drugs, Moss makes off with the cash. When psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Academy Award winner Javier Bardem creating the most chilling character since Hannibal Lecter) begins leaving a trail of bodies in pursuit of Moss, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is drawn into the case trying to figure out what happened and try and help Moss before Chigurh catches up to him. ***

Filled with memorable performances particularly from Brolin and a world weary performance by Jones, "No Country for Old Men" provides the perfect vehicle for the Coens to continue to mine the themes from previous films enrich and add depth to them. As the title implies Bell realizes that he's a man out of time; the world has changed and all his values no longer seem to be the basis for society, behavior and his reality. Chigurh represents a new breed of human being--a psychopath with his own bizarre moral code who appears to be the devil incarnate punishing those he perceives to have crossed that moral code and often leaving the outcome of his encounters to the randomness of destiny represented by the coin toss he uses to often decide his victim's fate. As with "Fargo" and "Blood Simple" the film is a mixture of grim reality and black humor with the latter providing a counterpoint to the few scenes of relentless and brutal violence that Chigurh unleases. ---

Image & Sound:

The DVD version of "No Country for Old Men" captures the superb photography of Academy Award nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins (who lost probably due to multiple nominations this year). His sweeping involving camera work captures the empty vistas of Texas creating the sense that Bell and others are trapped in something of a no man's land (or Hell…you can interpret it a number of ways). The muted vistas are perfectly rendered in both the DVD and Blu-ray with sharper image quality and detail in the latter particularly during the night scenes. ***

The 5.1 audio mix deftly incorporates the ambience of the vast undeveloped land that surrounds our characters and comes to life brutally as action scenes are unleashed. ---

As with most Coen films that appear on home video, there's no commentary track (although cinematographer Roger Deakins would have been welcomed). We do, however, get three long featurettes on the making of the film. Although I suspect we'll see a double dip at some point in the future due to the Oscars the film won, the featurettes really don't do enough to provide us with information on the making of the film compared to many others for lesser films. ***

"The Making of No Country for Old Men runs about a half hour and has a lot of interviews and clips from the film. The most interesting aspect of this is the comments from the Coens who rarely provide us with a lot of insight into their world outside of the film itself. ***

"Working with the Coens" has interviews with the actors discussing how they work as a team and their impact on their performances. It's an interesting featurette with some incredible insights from Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. ***

"Diary of a Country Sheriff" takes into Ed Tom Bell's world via interviews with Barden, Tommy Lee Jones and others. It provides interesting insights into the difficulty the sheriff has in adjusting to this new, bizarre, brutal world order. ***

In this new edition we also get a third disc with a digital copy of the film as well as some other minor special features including "Josh Brolin: Unauthorized-Behind the Scenes" is a mildly humorous featurette where Brolin takes the stuffing out of the Coen brothers. ***

We also get all of the material used for the Electronic Press Kit including interviews with the Coens, an in-store appearence of the stars answering questions. We also get an excerpt from the "Charlie Rose Show", "Variety Interview", a podcast with the Coens, "Lunch with David Poland" and "NPR's All Things Considered". There are also bits and pieces of other promotional interviews included. You can watch these randomly with a special feature called "Call It, Friendo". ---

Final Words: