on the violence depicted in the film: "The Coen brothers dropped the mask. They've put violence on screen before, lots of it, but not like this. Not anything like this. No Country for Old Men doesn't celebrate or smile at violence; it despairs of it." However, Turan explained that "no one should see No Country for Old Men underestimating the intensity of its violence. But it's also clear that the Coen brothers and McCarthy are not interested in violence for its own sake, but for what it says about the world we live in ... As the film begins, a confident deputy says I got it under control, and in moments he is dead. He didn't have anywhere near the mastery he imagined. And in this despairing vision, neither does anyone else." NPR critic Bob Mondello adds that "despite working with a plot about implacable malice, the Coen Brothers don't ever overdo. You could even say they know the value of understatement: At one point they garner chills simply by having a character check the soles of his boots as he steps from a doorway into the sunlight. By that time, blood has pooled often enough in No Country for Old Men that they don't have to show you what he's checking for." Critic Stephanie Zacharek of Salon states that "this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel touches on brutal themes, but never really gets its hands dirty. The movie's violence isn't pulpy and visceral, the kind of thing that hits like a fist; it's brutal, and rather relentless, but there are still several layers of comfortable distance between it and us. At one point a character lifts his cowboy boot, daintily, so it won't be mussed by the pool of blood gathering at his feet ... The Coens have often used cruel violence to make their points – that's nothing new – but putting that violence to work in the service of allegedly deep themes isn't the same as actually getting your hands dirty. No Country for Old Men feels less like a breathing, thinking movie than an exercise. That may be partly because it's an adaptation of a book by a contemporary author who's usually spoken of in hushed, respectful, hat-in-hand tones, as if he were a schoolmarm who'd finally brought some sense and order to a lawless town." Ryan P. Doom explains how the violence devolves as the