Except for a short segment in the recent anthology Paris je t'aime, The Coen Brothers have been out of action since 2004's failed remake of The Ladykillers, but their return with this stark thriller based on Cormac McCarthy's novel should more than appease the fans who've been waiting for their return to greatness.

Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss, a rugged Marlboro Man who comes across a scene of carnage in the desert while out hunting. A drug deal gone wrong leaves a case filled with 2 million dollars and no one alive to claim it, but when Moss returns to the scene after taking the money, he's chased by the Mexican gangsters, arriving to do damage control. Realizing that his life is in grave danger, Moss sends his wife Carla Jean (Kelly MacDonald) into hiding as he goes on the run from the hired killer they send after him.

We first meet Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh, an oddly calm Mexican with a strange Prince Valiant haircut, in the very first scene of the movie in which an unwitting police officer tries to bring him in, only to be given a grisly fate. We don't know much about him, except that he's been assigned to get that case of money back, something he does using a primitive tracking device hidden in the case and an air tank with a hose and a retractable bolt that's usually used to kill unhealthy livestock, but which he uses to knock out door locks. He's an unstoppable killer.

Most of the film's 2-hour running time is comprised of Moss being chased by Chigurh, every once in a while cutting back to Tommy Lee Jones as a local sherriff who's mystified by the expanding body count all seemingly done by the same man who killed his officer. All three men are extremely resourceful, which is what makes the film so fascinating, and the wilderness setting makes the film somewhat of a modern Western, though it's done in the Coen's inimitable style of allowing the humor to be implied, as you find yourself laughing at very dark things.

One might be able to argue which of the three key players the film is about, but the character that will leave the most memorable impact is Bardem as the clinical, ruthless killer, who's on a par with Hannibal Lecter or Dennis Hopper's character in Lynch's Blue Velvet as a baddie. It takes almost an hour before we even learn his name or reasons for being the way he is, which we found out from a late player into the game, played by Woody Harrelson, whose relationship with Anton is never quite clear.

By keeping things vague like this, the Coens are able to keep us guessing about who everyone is and what's going to happen, which adds to the effectiveness of the film as a crime-thriller. Thoughout this intriguing tale, they're able to keep our attention with the visually stunning film, every shot perfectly constructed with the help of Director of Photography Roger Deakins (who also shot Jesse James), and like in Fargo, the American wilderness along the Mexican border is as important a character as anyone else. Adding to the minimalistic tone of the piece is the lack of any incidental music or score whatsoever, not one single note until the end credits when Carter Burwell is credited for the music that runs over the credits.

Fans of the novel might be surprised and delighted with how closely the Coens' stick to the tone and plot of McCarthy's novel, even if the film's structure and third act is a bit awkward in a way that might leave those who haven't read the book scratching their heads or frustrated that key characters are killed off-screen leaving things hanging with a suitably vague ending.

Either way, this is a terrific return to form on a par with Fargo and other Coen classics, and it's the type of movie that can only get better the more times it's seen.

Rating: 9/10

No Country for Old Men opens in select cities on November 9.

Less than five minutes after the start of Cronenberg's follow-up to A History of Violence, we're treated to his trademark bloodletting in the form of a dapper man in a barbershop having his throat sawed through with a straight razor, an incident which will be explored further later. It will be almost an hour before we're shown a similar gaping throat wound, as Eastern Promises mainly deals with a pregnant teen who shows up in a pharmacy bleeding and gives birth before dying, leaving midwife Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a British woman whose Russian father recently passed away, to find out what happened to the girl using her diary to find her relatives.

Like No Country, the film revolves around the relationship of three men, all Russian mobsters Anna encounters while trying to find the baby's relatives: Viggo Mortensen's Nikolai is a driver rising up through the ranks, whilc Armin Mueller-Stahl is the boss of the family and Vincent Cassell is his wildly out-of-control son Kiril who sees Nikolai as a threat to his position, and he does everything he can to humiliate the driver and keep him in his place.

Certainly there are thematic carry-overs from A History of Violence in that it once again deals with a regular person trying to navigate their way through a world of crime and violence. Although the body count in the Coen Brothers' movie is significantly higher, the deaths in Cronenberg's film leaves more of an impact due to the brutality and attention to realistic and graphic detail. There are also similarities that can be drawn between the way Watts' character inadvertently gets involved with the Russian mob and Josh Brolin's induction into the violent world of Mexican drug-dealers.

The script for Cronenberg's film by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things) isn't particularly strong and is filled with a lot of information that doesn't help the story, like the sprinkled facts about Anna's past, but at least the relationship between her and Nikolai doesn't go in the direction some might expect. It might be good to know in advance that the movie takes place in London, because it's not exactly obvious even with an early shot of the Thames. I spent much of the movie thinking it was set in Eastern Europe since every character except for Watts spoke Russian.

Eastern Promises does look great, as one might expect from a filmmaker like Cronenberg, who has a keen eye for creating incredible shots, but other than a handful of scenes, it has serious problems trying to maintain one's attention, especially after the initial scene of violence. After that, the film settles into a slow-paced dialogue-heavy film that looks wonderful but delivers very few truly memorable scenes. The one exception is the one scene that seems typically Cronenberg, which has Viggo being attacked in a bathhouse by two assailants who he fights completely in the nude, a scene that mirrors the climatic scene at the end of History. By that point, the brutality of the fight seems to be inserted solely to win back the Cronenberg fans who are getting bored, but it seems out of place in what's become a character-driven story.

Through most of the film, Viggo seems to be channelling Ed Harris' baddie from History, but it's a good role for him, while Cassell and Watts give performances along similar lines to their past roles, little more, little less. The most impressive performance comes from the always great Mueller-Stahl, who is menacing in a way that never involves him raising a hand or a weapon, but simply with his commanding presence which keeps his son and everyone else in line. Some of the more interesting scenes explore the relationship between the three men and how Nikolai uses Kiril's flaws to make headway with his father, eventually being given a full role within the familiy.

While this isn't a terrible movie, compared to A History of Violence or any of Cronenberg's earlier films, it's a huge disappointment, since it seems like he's holding back and only letting loose because he feels an obligation to include the trademark nudity and gore for which he's known.

Rating: 6/10

Eastern Promises opens in select cities on September 14 and nationwide on September 21.