Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men

Javier Bardem's interpretation of the character Anton Chigurh was my favorite part of this movie. First of all, Anton is given some wonderful interactions and lines of dialogue, my favorite being the first coin toss interaction with the store attendant. The back and forth is so ridiculous and fun. It really gives you a chance to get accustomed with and enjoy Anton's personality. He's a character that definitely has a set of rules he lives by, but they've got nothing to with the morals that most people accept. His main self imposed rule being that he will stand by his word in letting someone live if they win his coin toss. I also think there's something very poetic and symbolic about the way he thinks. He really appreciated the poetic irony in the fact that he let the store attendant keep the coin that had just decided his fate, as did I, and he truly hoped the man would keep that coin somewhere special.

Other than this, Anton is a cold character with with no regard for life outside of his own. He's not crazy, in the sense that he's well groomed, well dressed, intelligent, he uses logic, he's not random or unpredictable once you understand how he works, and he's living in reality without delusion. However, he does lack all sense of compassion, guilt, remorse, or any similar emotion. His very limited expressions of amusement or happiness also indicate that he lacks the majority of pleasant emotions as well, or that they're very muted.

Though the movie as a whole is an exceptional watch, there were two things in particular that stuck out to me which I never figured out the reason behind. First being just how often Carla says Llewelyn's name. I didn't count, but after a while it felt like I could have been using her mention of his name as a drinking game.

Second being the fact that Llewelyn could seemingly run faster than a truck. I was genuinely expecting him to get ran down during the chase seen, but somehow he evaded it the entire time despite it driving directly behind him in a straight path, with every intention of murdering him. Why did they not go faster and run him over?

Anyway, I think everyone can enjoy this film for different reasons. Personally I mosly found humor in it through Anton's character and way of being, and some of Llewelyn's interactions as well, but this could also be perceived as more of a drama, or a slightly scary movie. In either case, this was another good watch that I highly recommend checking out.