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Other reviews by Howard Schumann
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THE
TIME IS OUT OF JOINT
“I don’t know what to do about 'em even,” he ruminates. “If you killed 'em all they’d have to build an annex on to hell.” Relentless in its heartbreaking sadness, No Country for Old Men is a powerful and uncompromising film, a lament for what America has lost and an outcry against what it has become, a society inured to violence where murder and rape is a coin toss and war is an event that is woven into the fabric of our life. *
Though the subject matter is melancholy, Matt Greenhalgh's script provides a light touch filled with trenchant one-liners from the group’s manager Rob Gretton (Tony Kebbell) and witty remarks from band members Joe Anderson, James Anthony Pearson and Harry Treadaway. Although Curtis has become one of rock’s most mythologized figures, Riley plays him simply as a very innocent, down to earth young man whose talent was much greater than his ability to handle it. Control is an extremely moving experience, whether or not you have foreknowledge of the events of Curtis’ life. It is a film that has the power to touch and leave memories that are indelible.
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No
Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers’
brilliant adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bloody lament
for a vanished America, hits the ground running. A prisoner,
Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), turns himself into the police
then strangles a Sheriff’s deputy with the chain of
his handcuffs and escapes. Stealing a police car, he pulls
over a driver and murders him with a device used for slaughtering
cattle. In the author’s words, "He placed his hand
on the man's head like a faith healer, the pneumatic hiss
and click of the plunger sounded like a door closing."
That is only the beginning of the myriad violent deaths in
this dark and brutal saga that is without any sympathetic
characters, just the hunter and the hunted, each, however,
with a kind of integrity that hints at redemption beyond the
apocalypse. 
Near
the Texas-Mexico border in 1980, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin),
a welder and Vietnam veteran hunting antelope, stumbles upon
dead bodies and abandoned vehicles, the result of a drug deal
gone bad. Fully aware of the risks but with complete clarity,
Moss takes a suitcase filled with two million dollars and
heads out in his truck. However, when he remembers a dying
man's request for water, Moss returns to the scene. It's not
long before he is discovered, shot at, and forced on the run
for the remainder of the film. Pursued by Chigurh and the
men who want their money back, the film becomes a tense chase
thriller with an uncertain outcome. 
To
add to the closing net, Moss is also tracked by a discouraged
sheriff, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and Carson Wells, a
hired representative from the drug cartel (Woody Harrelson).
As he tries to escape, he must also protect his wife Carla
Jean (Kelly Macdonald) from the sadistic killer, who seems
to kill just because he can. "I'm not sure why I did
this,” Chigurh says, “but I think I wanted to
see if I could extricate myself by an act of will. Because
I believe that one can. That such a thing is possible.”
He considers himself the representative of fate. “Every
moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing.
Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting
is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased.”
In
a film in which all the performances are excellent, Bardem
stands out as the screen’s most implacable villain in
many years, conveying an unrelenting sense of menace even
though we never get beneath the surface of his character.
As he struggles against what the film calls “the dismal
tide," the reflective Sheriff Bell can only ask in Jones’
twangy voice, “Who the hell are these people?”
His granddaddy only had to deal with cattle rustlers, but
now there are drug dealers to whom casual killing is a way
of life. He says, “I ain’t sure we’ve seen
these people before. Their kind.” Bell is not a pessimist.
He is simply exhausted and feels powerless. 
Unlike
conventional biopics like Ray or Walk the Line,
with their star-glamorizing propensities, Control
delivers a three-dimensional portrait of a real
human being and how his troubles affected the people closest
to him. The film is directed by photographer and video director
Anton Corbijn, a celebrated photographer who took some of
the most recognized photos of Joy Division. Because he knew
and worked with the band, the emotional connection to its
subject is palpable. The film is shot in black and white and
the choice underscores the grayness of Curtis’ home
town of Macclesfield, England, and the grim mood of much of
the work. 
The
major reason for the film’s success, however, rests
with lead actor Sam Riley, who eerily recreates Curtis in
appearance and voice. He performs all of the band’s
iconic songs such as "Atmosphere,""Love Will
Tear Us Apart," and "Twenty-Four Hours" himself,
using Curtis’ robotic hand motions on stage to great
effect. Another outstanding performance is that of Samantha
Morton who plays Deborah Curtis, Ian’s loving and patient
wife who is overwhelmed by her husband’s success and
her new responsibilities as a mother of their daughter. Married
at a very young age, both husband and wife lack the strength
to make a go of it, especially with the pressure of Curtis’
epileptic seizures growing worse, and Ian’s on-again,
off-again affair with Belgian journalist Annik (Alexandra
Maria Lara).