My take of on No Country For Old Men that includes what I have come to view as an important artistic statement about our involvement in Iraq.
Following in the footsteps of the Vietnam allegory contained within the original book by Cormac McCarthy, the Coen Brothers tap into the very American condition of always viewing our enemies through the prism of our own myths, a condition that is ill-suited to effectively combatting convoluted chasms like those found in Iraq.
It is statement about looking at issues through a third way. It no longer serves our needs to always utilize antiquated conservative or liberal methods. Sometimes, we, like Hamlet, need the ghost of a father to show us how to deal with our current predicament.
So, off the bat, it must be stated that this is not a review in the traditional sense. It is not my intention to inspire anyone to see No Country For Old Men. If the fact that it was directed by the great Coen Brothers and that it has also won the Academy Award has not convince you that it is worthwhile, nothing I say will inspire you see it. Additionally, it must be understood that this "review" contains a great deal of spoilers, so enter accordingly.
What has inspired this piece is my sense that many who have watched the film and either disliked it (because, to some, it feels incomplete) or those who have liked it (because, in its incompletion, it expects the viewer to fill in the gaps) many still do not seem to grasp what I believe is the underlying theme of the story. To me it seems to be an engrossing and highly relevent film about our nation's inability to identify with or, even, attempt to understand our enemies. This lack of insight is what, in the end, has doomed us to military and moral failures in not only Vietnam (which was the prelude war to the book's writing) but also in Iraq (which is the running subtext of the film).
It is in this context that we examine the character of Anton Chigurh (played eerily by Javier Bardem). He represents the villain in the film and, to many, he embodies a walking evil automaton hell-bent on killing everything in his scope. This sentiment is best expressed by the character Carson Wells (played by Woody Harrelson) who often describes Chigurh as "crazy" or, more succinctly, "psycopathic killer". The general consensus is that Chigurh is pure evil. But a closer look would reveal that Chigurh does have a moral compass albeit one very different from those in the West Texas towns that he does his business in. Chigurh has a morality very much intertwined with the notion of chance. To many, a coin toss may mean very little but, to Chigurh, it means everything. It can determine your fate, whether you live or die, whether Chigurh employs restraint or not.
In the film, Chigurh has a task to fulfill. That task is to return money erraneously taken by Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin). Moss has stumpled across drug money in the desert left behind during a botched deal gone bad. This simple act sets into motion the plot. In this allegory, Moss becomes the unwitted American who finds himself in a dangerous predicament with depths he does not fully understand. Not unlike our nation's current misadventures in the desert, Moss thought he was merely hunting antelope, just as our politcal and military leaders thought that we were merely deposing dictators in a far away desert. What Moss has unknowingly done is inserted himself into an already hostile situation and has taken greedy advantage of the misery of others. In Chigurh's moral universe, that is justification enough for a deadly pursuit and makes Moss just as culpable as those who commited the initial act of carnage.
As the chase begins, a third entity enters the storyline, that of Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Sheriff Bell adds a running commentary of the proceedings, one that relies heavily on a very nostalgic outlook rife with the delusion that things were much less brutal in the past and that this new kind of "evil" is beyond comprehension. His character represents the false nobility and righteousness that America often sees itself embodying, an America that often has a very romantic vision of the way things used to be and how things ought to be. But, still, an America so caught up in this false perspective that it cannot see the forest for the trees, an America that cannot nor will not attempt to understand it's well-earned enemies on that enemy's own terms. This causes a cloud of perception that obscures what really motivates our enemies and does little to allow us to effectively combat our opponents. This tunnel-visioned attitude leads Sheriff Bell to being a day late and a dollar short in his pursuit to stop Chigurh and protect Moss. His sentimental ramblings do little to allow him to focus on the job at hand and only serve to shield him from picking up on clues, including Chigurh's use of the air gun as his weapon of choice. By virtue, Chigurgh is shown to be using one of West Texas' weapons against itself not unlike al-Qaeda's use of planes and the Iraqi insurgents' use of car bombs and other IEDs. Sheriff Bell's narration of the proceedings reveals that as Americans, we are so often comforted by our false sense of security but equally embittered by our loss sense of innocence that we lose sight of the bigger picture.
While Bell's character represents an out-of-touch antiquated traditionalist view of America, Moss' character is very much the resourceful but greedy modern-man. He is the man who is, though focused on outwitting Chigurh and protecting himself, is also concentrated on making sure his wife and his money are safe. Similarly, as the American engages in the name of self-preservation and as a show of strength in Iraq or as it did in Vietnam, we are/were also hindered politically at home by trying to maintain our economic interest here and abroad as well as our social needs of quelling unrest and disapproval on the home front. These distractions, however, do not faze our enemy who, like Chigurh, has a singular goal to kill us as long as we trespass on their land and impede upon their goals. Chigurh is not concerned about his financial well being or the home front. He maintains absolute devotion to his one task at hand, get Llewelyn Moss.
And as resourceful as Moss the Vietnam veteran is, Chigurh’s almost unworldly perseverance far out reaches even Moss’ skills of survival. Whereas Moss gets tripped up in a Mexican hospital, Chigurh takes matters into his own hands and patches himself up. Additionally, Chigurh’s use of technology but, most importantly, keen insight into the world of Moss and West Texas allows him to predict where Moss will be even before, seemingly, Moss knows himself.
Conversely, neither Moss nor Sheriff Bell ever use their skills of insight to attempt to understand what underlying ideology and morals guide Chigurh. This lack of insight makes it impossible to anticipate what Chigurh’s next step will be. Again, as in Iraq, this leaves the Americans strategically disadvantaged. In the view of Bell and Moss, Chigurh must be stopped because he is causing havoc and murdering innocent people in cold blood. Through Chigurh’s eyes, he is merely trying to right a wrong and any and all who die do so because Moss is responsible for putting these people between Chigurh and his destiny.
In the film, there are two examples of people who are not strictly involved with the pursuit of Moss where Chigurh allows chance to determine their individual futures. The store clerk and Moss’s wife get a reprieve from Chigurh’s scourge. They each get to allow a coin toss to seal their fate. It is in these moments that we get to see a glimpse of what really makes Chigurh tick. We get to see that he is a man who does have an abiding belief in something other than evil for evil’s sake. There is, indeed, a method to his madness and that method is very important to him, even if those who are spared do not fully appreciate it. And although chance was not on the side of Moss’ wife, Carla Jean, by Chigurh’s reckoning it was Moss (who had the chance to save his wife by giving himself up) who imposed that outcome.
All this brings us to the fabled ending, the one aspect of the film that often makes or breaks it for much of the audience. The ending involves a newly retired Sheriff Bell as he relates a dream he had to his wife. He tells her that in the dream he envisions his father on a horse riding past him into the distance with a horn of fire waiting for his son to "catch up". There are several clues in the story that reveal a few things about the character of Sheriff’s Bell father that tips off the audience to the fact that Sheriff Bell’s father might have been made of bigger stuff than even his son. We learn that Sheriff Bell’s father, also a sheriff himself, never made it to Sheriff Bell’s age. His father was never an old man. In the telling of the dream, you get the sense that his father was willing and able to confront evil on its own terms and was "riding ahead" to do just that. His father did not seem bogged down in his mission to protect the good and innocent by invoking the wistful visions and memories that have hampered his old-aged son from doing his job effectively. His father has chosen to ride ahead to confront evil not to sit back and reflect on a supposed lost goodness (that even Bell’s friend reminds him never really existed). That willingness on the part of his father to confront that evil is what was most likely led to his early death, but it is also what is necessary to destroy our enemies.