Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter, Llewelyn Moss, (Brolin) stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.

Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) has been a West Texas county sheriff since he was 25 and is heard in voice-over mode on the brink of retirement reflecting on a life in law enforcement. Things have changed dramatically and increasingly he feels "out-matched" by the problems of the modern world. You have every sympathy with him too as this tale unfolds.

We first meet Anton Chigurh (the dead-eyed Bardem) being arrested by a deputy (Zach Hopkins). Back at the otherwise empty police station, the deputy describes on the phone Chigurh's strange possession, a compressed air cattle-gun. He makes the mistake of turning his back on the handcuffed monster, a psychopath prone to deciding the fate of the men he encounters on the toss of a coin.

Moss has stumbled on the cash and reckons he's hit the jackpot. As a Vietnam vet he knows how to look after himself as he flees his trailer park in a bid to throw any potential pursuers off his scent.

What he doesn't know is that packed in amongst the dosh is an electronic chip just waiting to be detected by a transponder. Unfortunately for him, that device is in the hands of Chigurh, a man who uses a cattle stun gun as his weapon of choice, and who is not used to taking no for an answer.

Despite being set around 1980, this is a very contemporary commentary on modern life (in the United States, at least) and features a particularly powerful performance from Tommy Lee Jones (though its Bardem who is up for the Oscar) as the world-weary sheriff living by an increasingly dated code of honour and simply trying to do the right thing.

In conversation with a contemporary in law enforcement, he muses that things started to go downhill when young people stopped using the terms 'Sir' and 'Mam' to address their elders. He recalls to a time when his father, a sheriff before him, didn't need to wear a gun and how he himself has sent a teenager to the electric chair – a boy who freely admitted it was his dream to kill someone and that he would do it again if released.

No Country for Old Men, based on Cormac McCarthy's book, asks some big, very relevant questions. Despite its sometimes ponderous pace, it works well as a film thanks to the quality of the script and cast.

* Film seen courtesy of Vue Cinema, Inverness.

editor@rsjournal.co.uk

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