And how come no-one is wondering whether Chigurh was in the motel room when Bell arrives after Moss is killed, because I promise you he wasn’t.
There is a shot of him in the shadows, but we are not shown where he is, although the first assumption would be in the same room. Where do you think he is?
Trying to remember what was going on, I vaguely remember a reflection of Bell’s gun and thinking that Chigurh had seen it.
Is any explaination ever given as to how Chigurh found Wells at the hotel?
As to why the movie was set in that time period, I believe it was to show the early stages of the nasty border drug smuggling era we are in now. People, like Tommy Lee Jones, were seeing the beginning of an awful trend and were concerned about the future of the area and its people. The visit with Barry Corbin at the end reflects this.
Chirugh wasn’t just getting the money back. Anybody who was involved in the screwup needed to go away. That includes anyone that called in someone else (the Mexicans, Harrelson) to “help”. Chirugh didn’t need help. He considered such people a hindrance. He was a “cleaner” and determined to do a good job at it.
Found on the No Country for Old Men website, this write-up on the film had some pretty good insights.
When Moss left in the nighttime to go back to the crime scene with a jug of water he said to his wife something along the lines of “If I don’t come back give my love to mother.” His wife says his mother is dead and Moss says “oh, yeah - then I’ll tell her myself.”
WTF? How many people forget Mom is dead, and what is this supposed to tell us about his character? Also he says to say goodbye to Mom, but doesn’t have anything to say to his wife. Nice guy.
Apparently, it’s a new trend of lunatic soulless robotic serial killers who can’t be caught and never leave traces.
Heck, I’m apparently the only person who feels this way, but I think the movie was basically Terminator 4, and it ruined it for me. The moral of the story, as referenced in the title, appears to be that it’s now a new era of nastier criminals and more despicable crime, which old geezer cops can no longer relate to or be at home in. However, that idea is all shot to heck by the Chigurh character, because that kind of criminal doesn’t fucking exist in the real world - he’s just the Terminator, and completely two-dimensional. The moral would have come through a lot better if the focus had been on a more realistic or at least remotely believable kind of “bad guy” with at least some human traits - Mexican drug smugglers would have been just fine - that would have made the viewer feel some kind of recognition with the movie’s universe and build some emotional attachment to the characters. As it is, I found it all to be just another big, dumb mess.
But don’t let me piss in your cornflakes. Carry on.
That was the same hotel that he caught Llewellyn in earlier in the film. Since Wells was there to find the money (and Chigurh), it was only reasonable to believe that he’d be at that hotel at some point.
Nah, I saw the movie with my dad, and he agrees with you. It totally ruined the movie for him, too. (For days and days we went back and forth on this, and I kept trying to explain, “But…but…he’s a metaphor! Just let it wash over you!” But he couldn’t let it wash.)
I assumed it was banter and he was making a (dark) joke.
No, I’m with you.
I’m with you too. I just saw this last night and thought it was terrible. A robotic bad guy coupled with a hero who gets depressed and quits at the end. That’s what I want to pay my money to see. :rolleyes:
Well, your mistake is expecting this movie to give you a hero. It’s a dark story, not an easy white-hat, black-hat, big-shootout-at-the-end genre flick. There are lots of those out there for you to choose from. I loved this film and all of its unusual choices.
I can totally understand those that didn’t like it and I would never try change your mind or explain why you *should * like it. When I think about it, a lot of it didn’t make sense and the ending could be considered *most * unsatifsying, yet I was completely drawn in and really liked it. Not for any conventional reasons, there’s just something about it. Maybe it’s just the weirdness. It’s just such a . . . spectacle. I feel the same way about There Will Be Blood (Equipoise, please don’t hurt me!). Not great story telling, over the top acting, and yet I absolutely loved watching every minute of it.
No, my mistake was paying $8.25 (plus popcorn) to watch that. “Unusual choices” my foot.
Um, whoosh? 
I thought it was a bit of surreal that you might find in any Coen Brothers film, but Fargo did pretty well without such. At a pinch I’d say I enjoyed it but I’d see your version and enjoy it too.
My thoughts about Chigurh is that he represented evil, more than the movie being about him as a character. Even still - if someone who is physically strong, resourceful, trained in war, and has no qualms about killing people comes after you when you are just living your daily life - you have a problem. The movie made me think a bit about having some home security or a backup plan in case a long shot such as a home invasion occured. Chigurh was not invulnerable as he was shot.
In real life what will usually bring such a person down is that first they will attract attention and horror with their deeds, and then society will organize against them which will overwhelm them with numbers and resources. Also criminals get old and usually make mistakes.
As Cervaise indicated in another thread. . .it’s not the movie’s fault that you missed the point.
You think the moral of the story was that “it’s now a new era of nastier criminal and more despicable crime”?
Wow.
Not only did you miss the point, what you thought it was was almost the complete *opposite *of the point.
Not “evil” as much as “death”.
“Evil” doesn’t flip coins.