As Mikemike2 says, the “who” is never specifically answered, but it was the people who came to find out what happened when either the money or the heroin didn’t show up wherever it was supposed to be at the designated time, surveyed the scene and figured out what happened, hauled away the heroin that was in the back of the truck, shot the one surviving witness at the scene (who possibly told them about Moss showing up earlier) most likely because it would be too much trouble to take him out and find a doctor for him and he was expendable, then sent word to the managerial types to get Anton on the trail.
It was Corman McCarthy who set the story in 1980. The Coens were just keeping with the book. In any case, one thing to remember about that time is the crime rate in the U.S. had been steadily rising during the previous 20 years and would continue to do so until 1990’s. Since then, crime has dropped sharply to early 1960’s levels (although there was been a slight increase recently). During this period of increasing incidence of violence and lawlessness, it wasn’t just the higher crime rates that alarmed people but where it was occurring and the character of the criminal activity itself. Even places as isolated and sparsely populated as West Texas (the setting for the book and movie) were seeing spikes in criminal activity. Also, many of the criminal acts were more violent and of an increasingly cruel and nihilistic character. That anxiety over the increasingly mean and disintigrating state of the world around them is expressed by Tommy Lee Jones’ character (who mentions that lawmen in his part of West Texas often never even carried a gun) and the sheriff in El Paso. Hence, the appropriateness of the title.
It’s also interesting that when Chigurh deviates ever so slightly from his warped “code” and does something relatively moral, he suffers for it. I noticed in the few seconds before the auto accident, Chigurh was checking in his rear-view mirror on the kids on the bicycles behind him. Had he not done that, he might’ve been able to see the other car running the intersection and avoided being T-boned.
I don’t remember the ‘managerial types’ comment. Can someone remind me where in the movie it came?
And better than my theory that we’d have no movie if he didn’t go back is the notion that his own goodness is his undoing. It is stupid to go back – he says so himself. The funniest line in the movie, I think, was spoken here; Moss says, “If I don’t come back, tell my mother I love her.”
Wendell says it, when he and Ed Tom were at the scene of the shootout. Wendell correctly figured that there was more than one fracas, because some bodies were fresher than others.
Equipoise, thanks – that explains why the heroin was gone too.
There are a couple of obvious parallels but I don’t know what to make of them. Early in the movie Anton and Moss each say “Hold still”, Anton to the unfortunate man in the car and Moss to the pronghorns he’s hunting.
Later both of them, after being injured, offer money to young kids in exchange for something they need. I like that both groups of kids include at least one kid who shows some concern. I’ll take that as a sign of hope, I guess.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think just setting the movie at a time in the previous generation tapped into the general, abiding sense people have that things are “much worse” today than they were when they were kids.
It’s an American notion that pops up continuously; my grandparents grew up in the '20s, and thought the '60s were awful. My parents grew up in the 50’s, and thought the '80s were by comparison a much coarser age. If the Cohens were to have made this movie in 2107, they would have likely set it in 2080.
I don’t want to use the term “retro,” but I have to say that I really enjoyed watching a movie that was set in the days before cell phones and the Internet. There’s just something cool about it.
It’s a feature of getting old. Another feature is the way older women always think young women show more skin than they ever would have back in their younger days. It’s been going on so long continuously that were it true, young women would be buck naked most of the time. Which, sadly…
Just watched the movie last night, so I had to resurrect this thread to see how the Dopers impressions matched my own – and to answer some nagging questions.
First, I think I loved it. And I get the big themes…but I’m hung up on stupid details, and didn’t see answers here (although I admit to skimming):
Where’d the money go? Did Chigurh fish it out of the vent in the El Paso motel?
What was Stephen Root’s character’s role?
I had a hard time figuring out what kind of weapon Chigurh was using. I got the air-driven bolt thing, but didn’t realize that he was also using a silenced shotgun. It didn’t seem like a shotgun, as it was putting very neat and tidy holes in things (like the truck driver’s windshield, and neck). So I thought maybe it was some kind of nail gun (I was stuck on the air-driven thing).
The book answers these questions with a little more detail.
The book makes it clear that Chigurh did recover the money from Moss’s motel room and returned it to the shadowy employers he had been hired by.
The Root character’s larger role is never explained clearly, but it’s implied that he was somehow involved in facilitating the drug deal for higher ups, that he doesn’t trust Chigurh to give the oney back and thus hires Woody Harrelson to kill Chigurh and get the money from him.
Good point, about the silenced shotgun. You’d expect more scatter, unless the silencer also focuses the “spray”. I know nothing about weapons.
I’m glad the thread is back – I had another question that I posted a few weeks ago but nobody answered. Yeah, I’m pouting.
What was up with the Mexican in the Barracuda? (This was in the book, not the movie.) Toward the end of the book, we meet this guy in the 'cuda. He’s cleaning blood off his car at a car wash. Later we learn that he killed a state trooper. Ed Tom thought the guy was innocent and he visited him in jail. The Mexican laughed at him and said yeah, he killed the trooper.
Where did this guy come from? The book doesn’t say, or if it does, I missed it.
According to what I remember from my hunting classes, a full choke on a 12-bore will give you a spread the equivalent of a circle with a diameter of 40 inches, at 40 yards. I don’t have to movie here, so I can’t estimate the range or spread, but it sounds about right according to what I remember.
The silencer, though . . . I can’t recall ever having seen or even heard of a shotgun silencer used for any other purpose that muzzle flash concealment. Wouldn’t do much for the sound, I would have thought.
This wasn’t clear to me either, but I read the book in kind of a hurry. I think this is the same guy Bell talks about in the “voiceover” section at the beginning of the book – the guy who says he’s going to hell just before Bell witnesses his execution.
I thought there was some ambiguity in the book over whether the Mexican actually did the killing or if Chigurh did it and the Mexican was taking the credit for it for some suicidal reason.
Except that the Mexican guy was washing blood off his car, or off the car window. It’s very confusing.
Anyone have any ideas why the Coens left out Ed Tom’s story of his “cowardice” in the war? In the book it seemed to tie in with Ed Tom going back to the motel to confront Chigurh, and then staying in his car in the parking lot. Maybe it would have changed the focus of the movie, and we’d have been waiting for Ed Tom to “prove himself”. I know I wouldn’t have thought of Ed Tom as a coward. Soldiers and law enforcement (and firefighters and medical folks and emergency personnel in general) don’t have to prove anything to me.
It was also interesting (in the book) that Llewellyn had the drop on Chigurh at the hotel and didn’t shoot him, and that he basically sacrificed himself to save the girl at the motel (dropping his gun when the Mexican said he’d let the girl go). That’s something else that might have refocused discussion if it had been in the movie – was Llewellyn just as unprepared for the changing times as Ed Tom? They were both “old men” living in a country with no rules.
I think Moss went back to help the agua guy because his conscience was nagging him, but he knew if he called the law the guy would likely have a heap of immigration and police trouble to deal with.
So, better to just give a guy dying of a gunshot wound some water (ie some small comfort as he dies) than do something that would result in him having legal issues? Riiight.
I think if Agua Guy had been alive when Moss went back, he would have done more than give him a drink. “Aw shit, man, you’re still alive? Well come on then, let’s get ya to the hospital.”
) better dressed guys Chigurh rode out to the scene with and then killed.
Yeah, I’m pouting.