No Country For Old Men
Villains don’t just come in blockbuster movies as we have seen some truly chilling characters in some fantastic dramas over the last ten years.
One of those roles that particularly stand out is that of Anton Chigurh, who was seen in the fantastic No Country For Old Men from directors Joel and Ethan Coen.
No Country For Old Men was a big screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, and saw Javier Bardem take on the role.
Bardem has already enjoyed a successful acting career, but Anton Chigurh was the role that really caught everyone’s attention and sent his star rocketing.
Chigurh is an unstoppable hitman who is hired to retrieve a bag containing $2.4 million after a drug deal has gone wrong. Llewelyn Moss - played by Josh Brolin - has come across the money and is now the target for the merciless killer.
Chigurh remains one of Bardem’s great performances - he has since played the villain in Skyfall fantastically well - as he really captures this characters lack of remorse or compassion.
It is a performance that will chill you to the bone, as Chigurh is a man who will quite happily kill people he is not even contracted to.
However, the creepiest moment for this character - and perhaps some of the moments that Bardem plays best - is when he gives a potential victim a second chance. With the flip of a coin, he will decide if they should live or die.
While No Country For Old Men is a movie that is packed with great performances, this movie really does belong to Bardem.
Bardem went on to win critical acclaim from the critics and picked up awards left, right and centre for his supporting performance. The awards season culminated in the Oscars, where he was the red-hot favourite to scoop the Best Supporting Actor Oscar… which he did.
It was back in 2008 when No Country For Old Men hit the big screen, and yet it remains one of the greatest villain performances in recent years… not to mention it was a role that took the career of Bardem in a very different direction.
Tagged in Javier Bardem