I was watching it again the other night and saw something I had not noticed before. I hope I have the motel rooms correct.
Chigurh goes into the first motel room when he is hunting down Llewelyn. He walks into the bathroom and as he walks back into the main room, he pauses in the doorway and looks at the door jamb. Then he places his hands on each adjoining wall and slides them up and down a bit while staring at the jamb. Like he is seeing how thick or strong it is.
Then he takes his shoes off, preps the steer gun and goes down to kill the Mexicans in another room.
So what was he looking for at the doorway?
Dennis
I always interpreted that scene as Chigurh sizing up the room, which he assumes is laid out and constructed like the room he’s about to assault, and planning his attack.
Missed the edit window by ages, but to be more clear: He’s just thinking about how he’s going to hit the room when he’s running his hands down the door jambs. If he’s looking for anything, he’s wondering if the walls they’re attached to are strong enough to stop his silenced shotgun if someone hides behind them.
The last time I watched it, I finally sorted out the motel room thing.
When Moss returns to his motel, he knows the Mexicans have found/are in his room. He rents the room behind his original room, so he can fish out the suitcase from the shared duct.
Chigurh rents a third room several doors down, on the same side as Moss’s original room. He uses this identical room to check out the secondary walls for thickness (can you hide $12 million in a wall that size?), and to memorize the layout of the room. Then he preps for his job, goes to Moss’s original room and kills the Mexicans there, who presumably have been also hunting the room for the money, as they have another transponder.
Moss is in the process of fishing out the suitcase, and hears the gunfire. By the time Chigurh figures out that the money isn’t in Moss’s original room or in the possession of the Mexicans, and clues in on the duct, Moss is long gone.
But now Chigurh knows where to look the next time he finds Moss in a motel room.