and investigator Wells become themselves targets. The story contrasts old narratives of the "Wild West" with modern crimes, suggesting that the heroes of old can at best hope to escape from rather than to triumph over evil. William J. Devlin explores the narrative of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, an aging Western hero, symbolic of an older tradition, who does not serve an underpopulated "Wild West", but an evolved landscape with new breeds of crime which baffle him. William Luhr focuses on the perspective of the retiring lawman played by Tommy Lee Jones at the beginning of the film, who is withdrawing from an evil which he cannot understand or address, reflecting the film's millennial worldview with "no hope for a viable future, only the remote possibility of individual detachment from it all." Release Theatrical release and box office No Country for Old Men premiered in competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival on May 19. Stephen Robb of the BBC covered the film opening at Cannes. "With no sign yet of an undisputed classic in competition at this 60th Cannes," he said, "No Country for Old Men may have emerged as a frontrunner for the trophy Joel and Ethan Coen collected for Barton Fink in 1991. 'We are very fortunate in that our films have sort of found a home here,' says Joel. 'From the point of view of getting the movies out to an audience, this has always been a very congenial platform.' It commercially opened in limited release in 28 theaters in the United States on November 9, 2007, grossing $1,226,333 over the opening weekend, and opened in the United Kingdom (limited release) and Ireland on January 18, 2008. It became the biggest box-office hit for the Coen brothers to date, grossing more than $171 million worldwide, until it was surpassed by True Grit in 2010. The reception to the film's first press screening in Cannes was positive. Screen Internationals jury of critics, assembled for its daily Cannes publication, all gave the film three or four marks out of four. The magazine's review said the film fell short of 'the greatness that sometimes seems within its grasp'. But it added that the film was 'guaranteed to attract a healthy audience on the basis of the track record of those involved, respect for the novel and critical support.'" The film commercially opened in limited release in 28 theaters in