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Spoiler Points for No Country for Old Men (2007) [R] 122 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.50
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
Click to read the non-spoiler review
Click to see photos from the Premiere of No Country for Old Men
The Discombobulated Ending Scenes:
• Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) is hired to take Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) out of the picture in this mess by a business man (played by Stephen Root) on a mysterious floor of an office building.
Questions: Wells mentions there's a missing floor in the building as in he counts more from the ground level than appear on the elevator buttons. What's this all about? What's the point? Root's character says, "We'll look into it." Then Wells asks about parking validation after just having been given the go ahead to spend $1,200 a day or more if needed to catch Chigurh. Is he just cheap? Doesn't he figure he can just used the credit card he's been given to pay for the parking?
• Wells shows up in the hospital room of Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) and offers to protect him and even let him keep some of the money if he'll just surrender it.
Questions: How on earth does Wells find him in three hours?
• Chigurh shows up in Carson Well's hotel and suggests they head up to his room.
Questions: How on earth does Chigurh know that Wells is there and has been hired to kill him? Is this pure coincidence? Of course, it begs back to the question of how on earth Chigurh, now lacking a transponder in the money is able to figure out where Moss has gone. Moss could have gone anywhere, with $2,000,000 he could have bought a plane ticket to Brazil and be totally off the grid forever. Somehow, everyone seems to know he's in a hospital in Mexico.
• While he doesn't have to, Chigurh kills Wells in his hotel room.
Questions: How does he just happen to be there at the same moment that Moss is calling Wells, apparently to make a deal? How is it that the phone rings more than six times before Chigurh answers it and Moss hasn't given up before that? Who lets the phone ring that long before hanging up and trying again?
• Moss goes back to the USA, buys new clothes, and gets the sample case full of money he tossed over the fence at the border crossing to hide it while he's in Mexico.
Questions: Knowing from Wells the location of the money, why doesn't Chigurh go and collect it just to be on the safe side before Moss or someone else would be able to reclaim it?
• Chigurh goes to the office tower where he was apparently hired himself and shoots the man who hired Wells. The underling present said the 'boss' had hired others to find the money as the prudent thing to do. Chigurh remarks that this was not a smart thing to do.
• Moss goes to a motel in El Paso to meet up with Norma Jean and give her the money. Apparently, he doesn't make the drop off though as the Mexicans hired by the boss have managed to secure the location of the drop off from Moss's mother-in-law, Agnes (Beth Grant) who blabbers on about everything.
Questions: Didn't this part seem maddening? It seemed like a reel was missing here. All of the sudden Moss is lying on a coroner's slab, Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) shows up too late, but guess who's in the closet of the motel room? Chigurh. So, did Chigurh do it? Did the hired hands? Why doesn't Chigurh kill Bell too? Why's he hiding in the closet? What happened to the money?
• Bell heads home to retire after he figures out that he's not match for today's criminals. He has some long, drawn out conversation with Ellis (Barry Corbin) who's supposed to be whom? His Uncle? What's the point of this conversation and scene? It's not overly effective in advancing much of the story. He's always so close to catching Chigurh, whe doesn't he come closer? How is it that Bell cannot find Moss and save him—everyone else seems to know he was at a hospital in Mexico?
• Chigurh shows up at Carla Jean's new house. Somehow he finds her. He waits for her to return and then plays mind games with her. He offers her the coin toss out of her predicament, but she refuses. He leaves giving the impression he killed her but no proof. He gets in his car to drive away and gets broadsided by someone who runs the light. He's badly hurt, but gets out of the wreckage alive. He rests on a curb as two boys approach. He offers one of them $100 for the shirt off his back. The kid offers it for free, but he makes him take the money and then tie the shirt into a sling. He then walks off asking the kids to tell anyone who asks he was gone before they arrived. He limps off.
Questions: Why is it a good thing that we don't know if he killed Carla Jean or not? Why not just let us hear the gun shot or not? What's the purpose of his getaway collision and shirt-buying experience with the two kids? And again, what happened to the money?!
Larger Issue Questions:
• What did you get out of the film?
• Do you think this film is as worthy of the praise it is getting in some critical circles?
• Was this film as good as Fargo? Will the Coen Bros. ever get it as right as they did with Fargo again?
• Were you frustrated by the ending, or do you like the inconclusive, illusive nature of it?
• Should all three leads be nominated for Academy Awards®?
1 comment:
I just saw this a half hour ago and I am just puzzled. I was SO intrigued but then at the end wondering what was the purpose of this. No real conclusion, I mean even Fargo had a leg in a tree chopper. It reminded me too much of the sopranos ending, maybe someday it will hit me but for now I am confused.
But I will still have some 70's bad haircut nightmares this evening...
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