On a basic level, I understand the comparison of No Country for Old Men to the Coen Brother's earlier films Fargo and Blood Simple - but in many ways their newest film is a culmination of their entire career. Each film in their oeuvre - both good and bad, drama and comedy - have led to this exquisite rendering of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel.

As an adaptation of someone else's work, it divorces the brothers from a career of making homages to genres - not that films like Millers Crossing or Raising Arizona or The Hudsucker Proxy weren't also excellent examples of the kind of films they were tipping their hats to. What their latest and greatest film does is translate McCarthy's work to the screen - both honoring the text and making it a work of their own.

The structure of the movie feels like that of a novel, we have two protagonists and one clear antagonist and their points of view share the running time of the film. Tommy Lee Jones' Ed Tom Bell narrates the opening shots of the film, but equal weight is given to both Josh Brolin's Llwelyn Moss and Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh. The narratives don't compete, but ebb and flow, telling only what each character knows about the ongoing story.

Llwelyn Moss comes across a drug deal gone wrong out in the desert and removes some money in a case from the scene. Anton Chigurh is sent to find that money. Bell must investigate both the original crime, where the money has gone and Chirgurh's violent crime spree during his hunt for Moss and the money.

Chigurh is a large, relentless chilling figure - comparable to other unstoppable evil in previous Coen films like Cooley in Oh Brother Where Art Thou and Charlie in Barton Fink. Bardem makes the character imposing and oppressive as he talks to his potential victims about how their lives led up to the moment of their meeting - and whether or not a flip of a coin will decide their fate.

Sheriff Bell is lost, barely able to put all these puzzle pieces together. He's feeling his age and an inability to put himself on the line for his job any longer. To him Chigurh represents a looming threat of death - but also unpredictability, which is the antithesis to his normal small town life.

Moss is like a Hitchcock lead - wrong place, wrong time - but also nothing like Cary Grant or James Stewart at all. In a way, he's also Hitchcock's maguffin - the inciting incident that buts Bell and Chigurh at odds in the first place. Had Moss not found the money and stolen it, nothing that happens after would have happened.

The Coens are masters of their craft. This is a high watermark in their career. The writing is superb, the directing sublime. And in a brave, perfectly executed maneuvre, they chose to not score the film at all - regular collaborator Carter Burwell only turning up to put music to the closing credits. Taking away such an important tool in a movie making experience is incredible, particularly in a film that builds tension simply with the way it is cut together - letting us know what is off screen, pressing down, affecting and as important as what is on screen.

The ending is a graceful moment of dialogue, setting this thriller apart from all others.