In theaters

“NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN,” written and directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, 123 minutes, rated R.

The modern-day Western “No Country for Old Men” hails from Ethan and Joel Coen, who arm themselves with Cormac McCarthy’s fantastic 2005 book of the same name and deliver one of 2007’s best films in the process.

Working from their own script, the Coens (“Fargo,” “Blood Simple”) craft a violent, engrossing movie that never telegraphs or condescends; it keeps its twists and its surprises close to its bleeding heart, which is significant because in this movie, that heart is often hemorrhaging.

Though the movie isn’t as bloody as, say, the recent “Sweeney Todd” or “Shoot ‘Em Up,” which is reviewed below, its violence also isn’t stylized or played for dark humor, as it is in those films. As such, it comes off as far more authentic and chilling, not to mention intense.

Set in 1980, the film stars Josh Brolin as Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran hunting one day along the Texas-Mexico border when he comes upon a grisly mass murder in the desert. Strewn around him are dead men and a dead dog, with submachine guns and other weapons littering the area.

Unfazed – the swarming flies and bloated corpses are mere curiosities to this man – Moss picks around the scene until he comes upon a stash of drugs piled high in the back of a truck and, later, $2 million in cash sandwiched within a black case.

Without hesitation, Moss takes the money, leaving behind the only survivor, a dying Mexican crying out

for “agua.” Back home, Moss lets his wife (Kelly Macdonald) know that she can now retire before he reveals that he does indeed have a conscience and thus a reason to root for him. In the middle of the night, unable to sleep because he’s thinking about the dying man he left behind, he makes the critical mistake of leaving home and bringing him a bottle of water.

It’s then that everything goes wrong for him.

Working against him, after all, is the formidable psychopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem, perfect), a man who sports a Buster Brown blowout and who obviously has no conscience himself (he kills with a cattle stun gun and the results are as repellent as you’d expect). For reasons best left for the screen, Chigurh decides that Moss is going to pay for stealing that money. He’s going to track Moss down, he’s going to get that money for himself, and God help anyone who gets in his way.

One person who does is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones, scoring again after his excellent turn in “In the Valley of Elah”), who completes the film’s deadly triangle by going after Moss and Chigurh.

This superb movie is about the sly weaving of skill and chance that unfolds among them all, with the characters crisscrossing in and out of each other’s reach with such mounting heat, they create a knot onscreen that tightens in your gut.

With its accomplished performances, direction, writing and cinematography, “No Country for Old Men” is a must-see. Ultimately, it’s a movie haunted by what the West was and what the West has become. At its core, the movie knows they aren’t so different, which is what troubles it, and it also knows that nothing will change anytime soon, which is what deepens it.

Grade: A

On DVD and Blu-ray

“SHOOT ‘EM UP,” written and directed by Michael Davis, 82 minutes, rated R.

This swift, enjoyably rank movie presses against so many limits, it achieves the threshold of a new limit. It likely will offend plenty, but most of those folks won’t be in on the joke the movie courts.

Clive Owen is Mr. Smith, who is minding his business one day when along comes a pregnant woman rushing past him in a state of duress.

Following her is a tough with a gun who obviously has plans to kill her. Since for Smith this won’t do, he intervenes, which leads to a dramatic series of events that finds the woman giving birth while gun-wielding assailants assail them both.

Let’s just say it’s a memorable scene (you don’t want to know how Smith cuts the umbilical cord), but when one of the stray bullets strikes the woman dead in the forehead, Smith is left at a crossroads. Should this gruff loaner leave the child to die, or should he scoop it up and be saddled with it for the rest of the movie?

Naturally, he does the latter, which proves significant for a few reasons, the main one being that plenty of people want to get their hands on that baby, chief among them the hit man Hertz (Paul Giamatti). Just why won’t be revealed here, but safe to say that political reasons are involved, as they tend to be these days.

With Monica Bellucci as the lactating hooker who leaves her fetish-hungry clients to join Smith so she can feed the baby (and smolder with Smith in a romantic subplot), the movie bulldozes forward. It’s only 82 minutes long, but it’s filled with so many raw, infectious gun fights, it comfortably earns its title as it cuts its bloody swath across the screen.

Watching the movie, it’s safe to assume that rarely, if ever, has a newborn child, fake or not, been used in ways that it’s used here. What ensues will horrify some, but since “Shoot ‘Em Up” is designed with a core audience in mind – Tarantino junkies – it succeeds in serving that audience and likely will delight them with a toxic thrill.

Grade: B

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

New to DVD

Renting a DVD? BDN film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases. Those in bold print are new to stores this week.

Akeelah and the Bee – B+

Balls of Fury – D+

Because I Said So – C

Black Book – B+

Blades of Glory – B+

The Bourne Ultimatum – B+

Breach – B+

Bridge to Terabithia – B+

The Condemned – D

Death Proof – B+

Deja Vu – C+

The Departed – A

Disturbia – B

Eastern Promises – A-

Evan Almighty – C

Evening – C+

Fail Safe – A-

Hairspray – A-

Halloween (2007) – D

Happy Feet – A-

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – C+

The Heartbreak Kid – C+

The Illusionist – B+

Infamous – B+

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry – D

Invincible – B

Inside Man – B+

The Invisible – C-

The Kingdom – D+

Live Free or Die Hard – B-

A Might Heart – A-

The Nanny Diaries – D+

The Pianist: HD DVD – A+

Ratatouille – A

The Reaping – D

Reign Over Me – C-

Resident Evil: Extinction – C-

Rocky Balboa – B+

Rush Hour 3 – D

The Simpson’s Movie – B+

Shoot ‘Em Up – B

Shooter – C+

Shrek the Third

Sicko – A-

Stardust – B

Superbad – B+

Surf’s Up – B+

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Blu-ray – B+

TMNT – C

300 – C-

3:10 to Yuma: DVD, Blu-ray – A

The Transformers – B+

28 Weeks Later – B

Underdog – C-

The Waltons: Complete Sixth Season – C

Warner’s Romantic Classics Collection – B

We Are Marshall – D

Zodiac – C