No Country for Old Men (2007)
Step out of the car please, sir.
THE SUMMARY: Through a serendipitous hunting mishap, a Texas man stumbles upon two million dollars left unattended after a drug deal shootout, a ruthless hitman pursues him to recover it, and the local sheriff resigns to the fact he’s too old to stop any of it. I like the Coen brothers. I like O Brother. I like Fargo. I like their dark humor and even their often fatalistic themes. There are pieces of this movie I enjoy and respect, but its ending is a great example of exactly what I hate: unclear, ‘open to interpretation,’ seemingly pointless, and therefore unsatisfying.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER TROY: Everything about this movie is top-notch. Great acting performances from the entire cast, a great directorial decision to never use any music, never wasting a scene, and the story following three different characters make this a cinematic masterclass. A perfect example of a director respecting his audience and leaving everything up to the imagination.
THE BEST:
The weapons are cool: The best I can say for this one is the weapons are unique and memorable: the captive bolt livestock pistol and the suppressed shotgun specifically. The captive bolt pistol makes the early scene of Chigurh stealing a man’s car a shocking one - neither the audience nor the victim fully understand what it is until it’s too late. The suppressed shotgun, while yes, implausibly Hollywood quiet, is also something memorable. I’m sure Chigurh did all the proper ATF paperwork to obtain it.
At least I gained a meme reference: I may not love or even like this movie, but any time I gain a meme reference, I will extend credit, even when the meme is stale and hardly ever deployed anymore. Of course I’m talking about Sheriff Bell reading the newspaper. The ‘implied facepalm’ reaction circulated the internet of yesteryear - now I just need a time machine to go back a decade to appreciate it fully.
That scene in particular has some great writing as well, though. Sheriff Bell explaining there’s no need for investigation, because the drug cartel men died of causes ‘natural to the line of work they was in’ is clever and funny.
The rejection of determinism and the conclusion that our choices matter: I both appreciate and hate the scene when Chigurh confronts Carla Jean to make good on his promise to kill her, and she refuses to participate in his coin toss game. But where there’s something positive to say, I’ll count it as a point for positivity.
In points for enjoyment, there’s something almost admirable, though of course twisted, about Chigurh following through on a commitment to kill a person, even if the guy he’s supposedly punishing by doing it is already dead. It’s a commitment to principle, even if the principle is murder. But the best part of this scene is Carla Jean mustering the courage the man at the gas station earlier could not - to reject the coin toss game and Chigurh’s moral dishonesty in playing it. Chigurh’s premise is that fate decides these things - our choices are minimally consequential, so whether we are ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or whether we live or die - these things are determined by factors outside our control, for which we have little or no responsibility. Carla Jean’s resistance demonstrates that’s not true. It’s Chigurh and Chigurh alone who decides if she dies or not, and that choice carries full moral responsibility with it.
What I hate is the movie is completely unclear about what choice is actually made. Does Carla Jean change Chigurh’s mind and he spares her? Is he unconvinced and he kills her? It would seem implausible that an unstoppable ruthless killer would suddenly change his ways based on two minutes of nagging from a woman. That said, I suppose only God knows power greater than a woman’s nag, and I do believe her persuasion is morally correct. But if Chigurh does kill Carla Jean, just like her husband, not showing the killing is a disservice to the movie. I’ll save my bitching on that decision for the next section.
Step out of the car please, sir.
Natural to the line of work they was in.
I ain’t gonna call it.
THE WORST:
The ending is awful: If you’ve followed my reviews for a while, you’ve likely heard my objections to endings by interpretation: leaving details unexplained, unresolved, and up to the viewer to think about. I understand many people think this shows respect for a thinking audience, or that a sophisticated viewer shouldn’t need every detail spoon-fed, but I take the opposite view: I’m watching a movie because I want to be told a story. So tell me a story, and make it good. If it’s up to me to tell the story, why would I pay for the ticket? Under that theme, No Country’s ending is one of the worst I’ve ever seen, at least relative to the expectations it builds. You think something great is coming, but instead you get disappointing meaninglessness. Let me count the ways that dissatisfy me the most:
Setup for a showdown that never happens: The entire movie builds toward what you expect to be a meaningful confrontation between the three intertwined characters: Moss the money snatcher, Chigurh the hitman, and Bell the sheriff. The sheriff works to catch the bad guy, the money snatcher and the hitman mutually pledge to kill each other, and then… none of those things happen. The movie doesn’t even bother to show Moss’ death. He’s just unceremoniously murdered, and the show moves on as though he doesn’t even matter, to things that matter even less. The sheriff never solves the case and just quits. The hitman just walks away. Nobody gets what he wants, with the possible exception of Chigurh, but that’s the point - the movie doesn’t even give the viewer the courtesy of showing what happens, or how, or why. That’s supposed to be ‘deep’ with themes of nihilism or something, but it’s just a letdown without even an explanation for why the letdown is necessary. There’s no detail, no intrigue, and no meaning whatsoever.
Completely preposterous ‘escape’ for the bad guy: Not only is Chigurh’s handling of Carla Jean left completely ambiguous, but his escape from the scene is downright silly. The sirens are closing in, the police are immediately nearby, and a visibly bloodied man limping away with a compound fracture 1) isn’t going to be seen by the police themselves and 2) isn’t going to be noticed by any witnesses in a residential neighborhood in the middle of the day. Sheriff Bell should have stuck around just a few more days. Who knew capturing Chigurh would turn out so easy?
The sheriff’s retirement is miserable anyway: Moss’ ending is disappointing. Chigurh’s ending is disappointing. Sheriff Bell completes the trifecta. He just retires, citing his own ineffectiveness, only to find dissatisfaction there too. Don’t try - you’ll fail. Also don’t quit, because you’ll hate it. It’s just a contradiction of defeatism for a man whose career accomplishments are contemplating his own failures over breakfast. Good thing his dreams are deep, because his contribution in the movie isn’t.
THE RATING: 2/5 Wickies. Too much of a let-down ending for me to award high marks.
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NEXT WEEK: The Green Mile (1999)
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