*Spoiler alert* – If you haven’t seen the movie, and intend to, you don’t want to read this. On first instincts this movie’s ending will frustrate anyone who likes closure. The ending comes so suddenly and unexpectedly that it will take a few minutes for you to realise it’s over. And then your brain will start to be overwhelmed with questions! Closure can only be obtained if you understand this movie is a parable. And there were many parables told by Jesus that were quite deliberately left open-ended for the listener to contemplate. It’s a masterstroke because far more value is obtained by intellectual rigour than listening to a nice story that is all tied and trussed up by the end. In my mind there are several layers to the message of this movie. (Some may not have been intended by the Directors). I will do my best to tease out some of the threads in a logical way. The story revolves around three main characters, though there are others that are on the periphery and play their part to the story. Llewelyn Moss is the hillbilly that stumbles on $2million of drug money and probably would have made away with it if he hadn’t listened to his conscious and sought to go and serve water to a dying man. Anton Chigurh is the ruthless assassin who is hell bent on tracking down the money. Ed Bell is the ageing and disillusioned Texas Sherriff who does his best to stay out of the story but cannot help but be reeled in. A critique of post-modern thought: There is an overarching theme in this movie which I could only take as a ruthless critique of post-modern thought. Each of the three main characters would vehemently argue that they are men of principle. Moss sees the loot as an opportunity to leave the trailer park behind and provide a good life for his wife.
Chigurgh has his very own code of honour and is ruthlessly committed to serving what he would argue is his logical morality.
Bell is a servant of the law and, despite his disillusionment and even bewilderment at what life has become, still does “his duty”. There are honourable as well as selfish aspects in the motivations of each man, but when their worlds collide the results are brutal and bloody. In the end only one of the three remain true to their version of truth and morality. Despite promising the contrary to his wife, Moss commits to a high risk game of cat and mouse with Chigurgh to satisfy his ego and need for closure. Eventually Chigurgh uses Moss’ weakness as justification to slay Moss’ wife to satisfy his own commitment to honour. Bell quits the police force and there are enough hints that in doing so he commits to a life of abject misery. Having stared evil in the face he finds he does not have the inner fortitude and motivation to keep up the fight. By the end of the movie the only one that has remained relentlessly true to his truth and worldview is Chigurgh. You get the feeling that he hasn’t even come to the point of flirting with comprising. The overall message then? 1. As much as we might try to pretend otherwise, conflicting ideologies cannot peacefully co-exist. 2 It is often those that are committed to the most evil and destructive ideologies that have the highest determination to succeed. What motivated Chigurgh? It is worth digging a little deeper to find out what it is that motivates Chigurgh to such incredibly malevolent violence. Though not obvious it is clear that by the movies end he has done far more than serve his ideology. He has also ended up with both the drugs and the $2million. For much of the movie it is easy to assume that Chigurgh is in the employ of one or the other of the parties to the initial drug deal. That belief is exploded only towards the very end of the movie when it becomes clear that he is actually a third party pursuing Moss for the cash. Texan commerce owned the cash (Carson Wells was their man) and the Mexicans drug-runners are the ones that finally catch up with Moss and slay him. Unless I’m missing something, Chigurgh simply saw an opportunity and took it. His only motivation therefore would have been his own gain. Virtually the only explanation you could give for his relentless pursuit of the cash is the one he gave for the coin he would toss to decide the fate of the random people that came into contact with him to find their fate hung on a coin toss – the path lead him there. If Chigurgh was an opportunist it lends a staggering extra dimension to his evil. But the parable begs the question – is any self-motivated opportunism less evil? Compromise For much of the movie Moss is set up to be the potential hero. If this movie were to have a Hollywood ending Moss would be the capable but naïve hillbilly that defies the odds and rides off into the sunset with the cash and the girl. His ride spins on the moment where he forgets that his primary motivation is to elude his pursuers and set up a new life for his family. From the scene where he yells down the phone to Chigurgh that he is making this a personal war his involvement in the movie is deliberately minimal. It’s an almost instant metamorphosis from courageous underdog to being slain and vanquished, lying in a pool of his own blood on the threadbare carpets of a rundown Motel in El Paso. Not even slain by the target of his anger. He is completely sideswiped by the Mexicans drug runners who track him down thanks to information from his mother-in-law. The swiftness of his downfall comes about because he takes his eye off his original goal and in doing so becomes sloppy and lazy. Compromise often does that. The inheritances of Judeo Christianity makes the West soft: This theme is buried within two scenes in the movie. Moss and Chigurgh both sustain bullet wounds in a gun battle. At this point Moss is the innocent “good guy” while Chigurgh is prevented from seeking medical help for obvious reasons. Chigurgh is pragmatic about his situation. He understands he has chosen a certain path that denies him many of the comforts of life. Uncomplainingly he self-medicates, a gruesome scene where he administers local anesthetic to his wound and cleans out the shotgun fragments. The full benefits of the medical world are available to Moss and he avails himself of its care. It is no coincidence that nursing nuns are visible while Moss convalesces in hospital. In the fourth century the Christian faith crossed the line from persecution to state religion. Those countries with a long heritage of the Judeo Christian ethic are today the ones that enjoy the most affluence and comfort. But they have also allowed affluence and comfort to become their goal. Modern affluence and comfort is only possible because of the economic persecution of the majority of the world’s population – and these downtrodden societies have become an ideal breeding ground for the kind of malevolent ideology that Chigurgh represents. The Western teenager complains if they have not kept up with the latest and greatest technology of their peers. They are oblivious to the horde of hungry and starving that inhabit the planet. If and when it becomes a war of these conflicting worldviews, which of the next generation are going to be mentally tougher to see the matter through to a conclusion? Justice and Karma are not an obligatory right: In the final ten minutes of the movie Chigurgh is unleashed to satiate his desire for his personal form of justice – served by the slaying of the innocent. As he drives away from his last slaying, Moss’ wife Carla Jean, he has right of way at the traffic lights. It is obvious what will happen next. A car runs a red light and T-bones his vehicle. He extracts himself from his vehicle and is attended to by some young teens horrified by the bone sticking out of his arm. Hearing the sirens and needing to stay ahead of the law he bundles his shattered arm into a sling and staggers away, presumably to live another day. If there were obligatory karma Chigurgh would surely have died in this accident or at least been incapacitated so the law could catch up to him. Justice is not served on Chigurgh which is a key element in the lack of closure the viewer experiences at the movie’s conclusion. It is a confronting and thought-provoking movie that doesn’t shirk the ruthless reality that life cannot be. I watched it against the backdrop of the roller coaster ride that is the current uncertainty of the future of my homeland Zimbabwe. In recent days I have found myself shaking with rage every time Mugabe has appeared on screen. My every instinct wishes justice to be meted out in equal measure on this barbaric, cruel and unkind dictator. In reality I know there is still every chance he will hold onto power. The worst fate that might “befall” him is a removal from power to serve out his dotage in a safe haven funded by the billions he has gouged out of a once prosperous nation. I doubt in this life he will be asked to pay his butcher’s bill for the injustices he has dealt out on my countrymen for 28 years. Which makes me hungry for the eternal hope of the afterlife that featured so prominently in Bell’s closing monologue.
