Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, starring: Josh Brolin (Llewelyn Moss), Javier Bardem (Anton Chigurh), Tommy Lee Jones (Sheriff Ed Tom Bell), Woody Harrelson (Carson Wells) and Kelly Macdonald (Carla Jean Moss), 122 minutes, 2007.

Llewelyn Moss is a pretty regular working guy, out to supplement the family larder by hunting antelope, when he happens upon a drug deal gone badly. $2 million is left lying around so he scoops it up. The loss is not pleasing to the drug bosses so they send out Chigurh, a psychopath, to recover the money. He is a different sort of hit man than we are used to since he carries around a huge pressure tank that drives an air gun, similar to that used for killing cattle, which he uses on his victims. He is a sinister but somewhat comic character. Chigurh is not so much immoral as amoral, like an avenging angel of death of biblical proportions who has no other motivator but duty. When a bounty hunter, Carson Wells, tells him he is crazy and does not have to kill Llewelyn, Chigurh looks at him uncomprehendingly. He justifies some of his killings with a coin toss. The victim has to "call it" all the while being treated to a philosophical treatise on fate, choice and a life well lived. He is able to blame the results on the coin. When Carla Jean disarms his argument his only response is to kill her too.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell brings a kind of moral simplicity to the hunt for the killer but is clearly a character of laconic integrity. He seems overwhelmed by the complexities of the world and its evil. He argues, "It's hard to take its measure." It is in conversations with his wife and his deputy that Bell is able to forge some accommodation to the presence of evil. The directors use the well-known technique of comic relief to lighten a tension that would otherwise smother us. One day Bell reads a news story out loud to his deputy. It concerns a couple that tortured and murdered elderly people and then cashed their social security checks. The deputy snickers and then quickly apologizes. "That's OK," says Bell, "sometimes that's all you can do."

One might think that with such a review, all DVDs should come with a sticker marked, "Abandon hope all ye who view this film!" Perhaps only humour and irony will save us from overwhelming evil that seems too much for one person or even all humanity to bear.

In the end, Bell tells his wife at breakfast one day, of a dream in which his father, himself a former sheriff, rides past on horseback with a cone of fire. Bell claims little for knowing where his father is or what he is doing; just that he knows his father will be waiting for him up ahead when he gets there. It is a signal of hope beyond the present darkness. Bell is the Christ Figure in this story. Not the Christ of the Gospel of John, equal to every task with an answer for everything, in control ("It is finished!"), but more the Christ of the Gospel of Mark, anguished and answerless ("My God, my God, why…?").

The complex story, the excellent performances by the spot-on cast and the flawless weaving of comedy and drama make this an entertaining film. As well, there is ample fodder for theological discussion, about right and wrong, good and evil, hope and despair, either as internal dialogue or with friends.