No Country For Old Men: Movie About What's Not the Plot

No Country for Old Men is a movie about everyone surrounding the plot instead of the plot itself. It opens with Sheriff Tom Bell telling about how times have changed, how the world has become more violent and he has been shaken by people too dark to relate to. From here, we meet Anton Chirugh, sitting on a bench at a police station, his hands cuffed behind him. He pulls the cuffs from beneath his feet, wraps them around the arresting officer's neck and strangles him to the floor until he bleeds out.


The unnoticed, misinterreptation many people have of the movie is it became too distracted from it's plot with the ramblings of Bell and moments less-than-to-the-point with conversations between other characters. But the first death of the movie has a strong impact due to the beginning monologue:

The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm
afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this
job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet
something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard.
He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

This sets a tone around the movie. The slaying by Chigurh has deeper meaning, establishes a selflessness about law enforcement, and makes the act as evil and heartless as the crime first described.

The follows Moss, a hunter who stumbles upon 2 million dollars in cash from a drug deal that went bad in the middle of the West Texas desert. Moss flees with the money, mexican drug dealers and Chigurh chasing after him. Sheriff Bell is concerned for him, knowing the types that are chasing after him, and feels a need to save Moss' wife from the heartbreak of her husband's death. The movie is about characters, for after all, anyone can right shoot-outs, but adapted from Cormac McCarthy's book, the way each character prepares for and acts throughout the shootouts make it something else. Anton is cool and efficient, only expressing pain when hurt, not regret or doubt. He is an instrument. Moss is desperate, but able to rely on people to help him and has the money to get whatever he needs.


The award-winning Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, gave great attention to detail, where you don't know why, but can tell something dark is approaching. Cameras are set up so the man about to run away is in the center of an empty feild, the vast space in every direction. We feel Chigurh will be chasing him by the dark clouds that quickly cover the field towards the man's direction.

Sound and film editing go the extra distance here. The action sequences have detailed sounds, where we hear a sharp, metal squeaking disrupt the silence at one of the most suspenseful scenes. It is the unscrewing of a lightbulb, but the sound was enough to unsettle us, topped with the sudden darkness.


Although the beginning monologue is given to Bell (it can even be argued half his lines are for the sake of avoiding an inner monologue), most of the story is in the simple lines and acting. Dialogue is quick and sharp. One such scene is where Chigurh is talking to a gas station cashier. The cashier noticed his out of state license plates (he killed the owner and stole the car). Chigurh is lost on whether or not to kill the man, and so he flips a coin to determine what he should do. He tells the cashier to call and the cashier slowly realizes whats at stake.

No Country is watched like a book is read. We observe and are left to interpret, to reflect our feelings. There is no chance, or fate left to the closest we have to the hero. This is not the good guy/bad guy action flick, where one should win, but we can tell who is good and who is bad, who we want to win, and who is hit by chance.




The movie ends with a prophetic view, a controntation or realization of what is to come and what has caused all of it. As well as a moral. SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't seen it, stop reading now.


Anyhoo, Moss' wife ends with getting the better of Chigurh in a moral sense. She tells him there is no coin flip, it is only Chigurh who can kill her, no promises he made or left to chance, only Chigurh. She blames him and won't allow him an escape. We're reminded immediately afterwards, Chigurh is still able to fall victim to luck and random events the same as anyone. Bell has two dreams. The first is money corrupts, but he is a good man and therefore money in his dream doesn't matter to him. The second is of his death, which will come. The true beauty is the movie is left to interpretation, but multiple interpretations can arise, many as legitimate as the next. The movie is open, like a story covered in symbols that set a tone, but leave what's behind them for you to guess at.