So how, I wondered, did he land?in two of this year’s most intense dramas, the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” and Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster”? Talk about setting yourself up for disaster. Brolin’s costars are Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem (in “No Country”), and Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe (in “Gangster”). Together, they have four Oscars; Brolin has one nomination—for a Blockbuster Entertainment Award. He doesn’t have a ton of lines in either film. He’s the good guy on the run from contract-killer Bardem in “No Country” and he’s Denzel’s bad-guy rival in “Gangster.” But in both parts he fills the screen with a quiet ferocity that’s chilling, and thrilling. I would’ve expected someone who has been warming the bench for so long to swing for the fences. Instead, Brolin underplays so deftly—a nasty strut here, a footrace with a Rottweiler through the Rio Grande there—that I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Coincidentally, Brolin sports a droopy ‘stache in both films. It’s been a long time since facial hair, and nepotism, looked this good.
