I've heard so many great things about Javier Bardem's performance as Anton Chigurh in this film. I have seen Bardem act before, although only in Spanish language films (including the brilliant Jamon Jamon), so was initially taken aback by how well he speaks English. He does have a slight accent, but it is otherwise excellent. Hopefully that means he will appear in more English language films in the future - I'm certainly looking forward to seeing him in the already released Love in the Time of Cholera as soon as I can get my hands on it. Simply put, this is a really stunning performance. Chigurh is a complete psychopath who thinks nothing of killing anyone who gets in his way. Bardem makes this utterly convincing, with a face that can occasionally charm, but usually strikes the fear of God into anyone who comes across him, including the audience (well, me, anyway). And this is all despite his silly haircut, which is a bob of the type I had in the nineties. I will watch this film again for Bardem's performance alone.

Tommy Lee Jones is good as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, but then I've never seen him give a bad performance. My only issue is that he seems to play more or less the same role in every film I see him in and I'm getting a bit bored of it - I imagine he could have played this role with very little preparation. The actor himself admits in one of the documentaries in the extras that he was concerned about being typecast - however, he felt that the role was too good to turn down. Fair enough, but please, no more! Woody Harrelson appears as a man hired to get his hands on the money, and Chigurh, and reminded me just how good an actor he is. He seems to have disappeared into the background over the last few years (the cynical part of me wonders if it is because he's losing his hair - sadly, Hollywood is that superficial), but hopefully his career will take off again as a result of this film.

There is a lot of violence; Chigurh thinks nothing of shooting people for getting in his way, which means a great deal of blood. However, the shootings are nothing compared to one scene with Chigurh when he has to patch up a really terrible wound in his leg. He pulls what I presume are shotgun pellets out of his leg himself and tends the wound with disinfectant and pain-killing injections - watching him grimace as the blood pours out of the wound is truly uncomfortable viewing. I actually felt sick and had to look away - something that rarely happens to me any more with this genre. The special effects are very very good - it looks exactly as if he has a hole in his leg from a shotgun wound. Obviously, this will put a lot of people off, so you've been warned. I'm actually very suprised that it only has a 15 rating in the UK; certainly quite a few other countries have given it an 18.

I think the only criticism that I have of the film is that I found it hard to accept that Llewelyn could be such an idiot as to want to risk his life and that of his wife just for a suitcase of money. I can understand him wanting to take it in the first place, but once he realised someone else is after it, why didn't he just give in? However, as the film is apparently quite true to the book, this is obviously not the fault of the actors or the Coens. Some will find the ending a bit disappointing, simply because there are lots of ends left untied. Personally, I loved it, because it felt natural.

Classification: 15