No Country for Old Men

Cafe Society
41

Do we really STILL need to use spoiler boxes in this thread? I guess I be the first one to speak outside the box here…

My wife and I just got back from seeing this movie. I was pumped to see it as it looked like a great flick. We both really liked everything up until the last act where everything just seemed so random for no reason other than to take up time in the movie.

Woody Harrelson. His character seemed to be a big deal when he first arrived but then turned into nothing at all.

Brolins character made some very random decisions, again for no reason. Why did he end up in Mexico to begin with? To avoid Anton? For medical help? Why? Why did he throw the money over the fence?

The end when the credits roll. Chalk us up as viewers who felt robbed of a real ending. Very unexpected and fairly ridiculous way to end that movie.

Anton was a great villian though. All the actors were very good and we really liked the movie overall but the end left us feeling jilted I guess. I don’t think the movie is advertised as quite the arthouse movie that it really is. Very little development of any of the characters.

Oh, any movie with a SILENCED SHOTGUN (do they even exist in real life?) is alright in my book.

42

Edit window gone.

I wanted to ad that this movie reminded me alot of Babel in how it ended while everything was still all fucked up with no resolution.

I hated that movie.

43

Man, I’m going to have to see this again. I swear I can’t remember what’s going on with the ending that people were confused by or hated so much. I walked out of the theater lost in awe, not thinking about the ending, but the movie as a whole, as an experience. An amazing experience. It’s like other people saw a completely different movie, like maybe the last reel of mine was missing.

44

I have not yet seen it, so clearly I am qualified to say “It Stinks”. :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:

45

The ending flies in the face of formula. This will leave some viewers uncomfortable and flustered because they were expecting a tidy resolution.
Also, some viewers might not have been listening closely to what the sheriff was saying in various conversations and assumed it wasn’t important and relevant to the context (which it was–there are no extraneous words in the film).

46

Well, it would be unfair of me to ask you to spend $357 (that’s what movies cost these days, amirite) to see a movie that you obviously won’t like.
Loved the movie, loved reading an explanation of what the ending meant.

47

My mind was starting to wander, so I missed a lot of it. I didn’t dislike it though.

I loved the way they skipped Moss’s death. It reminded me of another movie, Down By Law, that did something similar. I liked the way it messes with audience expectations and shows that other things are what matter more.

48

We pay maybe US$4 at a nicer cinema but still can find see it for about $3. :smiley:

49

I saw the film over the weekend and absolutely loved it. IMO, the best film the Coen’s have ever made. There were a few items that were unlclear to me or that I remembered differently that some others did. Since it seems we’re past the point of spoiler boxes, I’ll leave these out in the open and just consider this fair warning…

I thought that the Mexicans killed Moss, not Chigurh. Clearly, there were two parties on Moss’ trail. The Mexicans had made contact with Moss’ wife and MIL and got all the info on where they’d be. Chigurh couldn’t have remained in the hotel room after the killings while the police were there. I thought that he came to the crime scene afterward, looking for the money. The conversation that Bell had with the other lawman is what led him to believe that Chigurh would do this and it prompted Bell to return to the hotel room looking for him.

Also, my initial impression was the Chigurh escaped the hotel room before Bell entered and that he used the air vent as an escape route. I’m beginning to second guess that conclusion though. Was the cover off of the vent simply because Chigurh had known that was where Moss had hidden the money? Could Bell really have been careless enough to relax in the hotel room without knowing for certain that Chigurh wasn’t there? I didn’t have the impression at the time that he left knowing that Chigurh was still in the room.

Lastly, did Chigurh kill the accountant after killing Stephen Root? I assume he did, but that was the only possible killing that I thought was left unclear.

I’m sure many of my impressions will change upon a second viewing, but I’d like hear others’ opinions.

50

Re: the accountant.

As I understand it, the account asks in some fashion whether or not he’ll be killed and Anton says something to the effect of, “Did you see me?”

I’m not sure if those are the exact words but I took that to mean, “Of course I’m going to kill you. You know I have to!”

51

That was my take as well.

I love the Coen brothers’ shots of driving at night on deserted roads. In this one they reminded me of Blood Simple and Fargo. I don’t remember if their other movies have that.

52

That’s what I got too. As Bell was driving up, he heard the gunshots and then saw the Mexicans hauling ass out of there. I assumed that they showed up while Moss was talking to the lady at the pool, they shot at him and missed, but got her, then he ran to his room, and they got him just as he opened the door. I also figured that Chigurh went to the room later after the police had left, looking for the money, probably figuring that Moss had hid it in the ductwork again.

I assumed that Chigurh was still in the room when Bell left, but I’m not certain of that.

Yeah, I’m sure he killed the accountant. Why would he not? The only person I was sure he was going to kill, but that I don’t think he did, was the woman at the trailer park office who refused to tell him where Moss worked. I thought she was a goner, but then Chigurh heard the toilet flush and realized she wasn’t alone, and left. I thought he would kill both of them, but now I don’t think he killed either of them. Seems odd and out-of-character.

53

This post came out sort of train-of-thought-y, but here goes. . .

I was blown away. Too bad I saw it at a terrible theater, where they cut off the credits because they scheduled the movies too close together. I’ll be out to see it again real soon. It didn’t help people realize it was over when they cut right to commercials, and turned on the houselights.

For me, best movie of the year. Best movie in a long time. I’m still high after seeing it on Friday.

As Cervaise was getting at eariler, it’s almost like the entire plot is a MacGuffin. What little I’ve read of McCarthy, though, that seems to be his style. His books are about “BIG THINGS” and he just has a roundabout way of getting there. This really crept up on me and didn’t fully dawn on me till after Llewellen died.

I think that for me, this story was mainly about the random nature of death and evil. It exists, it always has, and sometimes it’s just a coin toss (literally and not so literally) that will determine which side you will fall on.

That’s why Ed Tom’s speech about the bullet and the steer was significant. Chigurh was trying to remove the randomness from killing. It also helps explain why scenes like the car accident and the scene with the wife were in there.

But, it was also about false-nostalgia, and principles, and how randomness just blows these things away. “Sir” and “Madam” had nothing to do with it, Ed Tom’s take notwithstanding.

Also, some hilarious dialog which is a strength of the Coens. . .“what should I put in the description? Recently drank milk?”

“Managerial types.”

Loved the first coin flipping scene.

A.O. Scott did a great write-up about the scene where Chigurh is walking down the motel hallway. I second his thoughts completely. Awesome scene. You know what’s coming, and it still hits you like a lock in the chest.

And, I’m really not sure if Chigurh was in the room where Llewellen died. They had that one shot of him in the shadows, but there was really nowhere for him to hide, logically. But, figuratively, Anton and Ed Tom don’t really make sense to each other. They never even see each other in the movie.

Great handcuff strangling scene. The scuff marks were a great touch.

One final thing: A dog chasing a man down a river.

Show me anything anything you can do in any action movie that is more riveting than a giant pit bull chasing a man with one functional arm down a river. That is movie-making. There’s just nothing these guys can’t do.

54

Some people have suggested that Chigurgh was in the room NEXT to the one that Ed Tom went into, hiding behind the door. There were two doors that were closed off by the police tape.

55

Great post Trunk!

I’m reminded now, Bell’s deputy had some of the best lines in the movie. This one is the only one I remember at the moment…I definitely have to see this film again…but while I was watching the movie I was constantly entertained by his quips.

56

He was great.

He was a guy who was in Deadwood, left, then came back as an entirely different character. Great actor.

57

I had the pleasure of reading the book more or less immediately after seeing the film. And, of course, what happens in the book is not necessarily the same as what happens in the movie – large chunks are lifted more or less intact, but there are things omitted and things changed.

[SPOILERS for the book ahead!]

That said, that’s what happened: the Mexicans shot Llewellyn (and the woman, though she’s a different character in the book). It still happens “offscreen,” so to speak – Ed Tom is told by a different officer what witnesses say happened, which was basically an ambush/standoff.

(The most interesting minor change, to me, is in the scene between Carla Jean and Chigurh. Carla Jean a) believes that Llewellyn ran out on her, and was perhaps dallying with a female hitchhiker when he’s killed, and b) she calls tails when Chigurh flips the coin, which comes up heads. I prefer the movie version, frankly.)

58

I saw this movie over the holiday weekend and was pleasantly surprised. The killer was absolutely flat-out menacing. I loved the pace of the movie - it starts out quiet but still exciting - and one of the first things you see is you see the killer in action. The first kill is on-screen, with an intense struggle and close-ups, and the physical evidence of the crime in plain view. As the tension builds, you see less and less of Chigurh killing people, up to the very last scene where you don’t see or even hear him kill, and yet as the movie progresses he becomes more and more frightening. I really loved that about the film - it was so menacing and frightening that by the end you didn’t even have to see the violence to feel the same dread.

59

Just saw this yesterday, flurking loved it, loved the ending, loved everything about it except the one goof I couldn’t get over (below). Can’t describe anything better than anyone else has, but I have to take a stab at the ending thing:

The ending is great because it comes at the end of a movie that is all about death, after the central character, who has spent the entire film metaphorically turning his head and looking away from death, has just told about having a dream about (as was so well pointed out upthread) his own mortality. I mean, how much more ending can an ending be?

Favorite moments: “He doesn’t have a sense of humor,” managerial types (damn, I’m mad I was beaten to that one), the fact that Moss initially got shot in shoulder, same as the deer or whatever that was he was hunting, the way Moss would lie awake in bed having conversations with himself (guilty), the guy in the pickup truck Moss says “Don’t worry I’m not going to hurt you” to, and the scene of Anton sitting crossleg on the john (which phrase popped into my head to the tune of “25 or 6 to 4” while the scene was playing, causing me to be the only one in the theater to laugh during it).

Goof I couldn’t get over: Mail inside the door of the Moss’s trailer. But. No. Mail. Slot. What did they do, roll it up into a tube and shove it through the deadbolt?

60

I assumed they slid it under the door.