Movie: "Not a Country for Old Men" (possible "spoilers")

[JohnRich 4]

I kind of lost track of the money satchel near the end of the movie. Who the heck ended up with the sack of money? The hit-man didn't seem to have it. Did the trailer-park hero have it stolen from him by the seductive chick at the swimming pool and her accomplices? Did the trailer-park hero's wife have it?

[quade 3]

If you're going to discuss overall feel and performances of movies feel free to to it out in the open, but . . . PLEASE . . . if you're going to give away endings to movies currently in release, do it in PMs.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[ryoder 1,384]

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If you're going to discuss overall feel and performances of movies feel free to to it out in the open, but . . . PLEASE . . . if you're going to give away endings to movies currently in release, do it in PMs.

Yeah! What he said! Especially when it is a Coen Bros film!

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[Shotgun 1]

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. . . PLEASE . . . if you're going to give away endings to movies currently in release, do it in PMs.

Or at least put "spoiler" in the title. Then only the moderators will have to read it.

[JohnRich 4]

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if you're going to give away endings to movies currently in release, do it in PMs.

I didn't give anything away. I simply mentioned several of the characters in the movie.

You won't like the ending of this movie...

[chinagirl 0]

I think the intention is that the hit-man got the money.

~Built for Abuse
www.skydivethefarm.com

[normiss 622]

and get the title correct for that matter

[JohnRich 4]

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I think the intention is that the hit-man got the money.

But at the end, he walked away from the traffic accident empty-handed. If he had the money satchel, he wouldn't have left it behind at the accident scene, after all the trouble he went through to get it...

[JohnRich 4]

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and get the title correct for that matter

Oh. Fixed it.

That was kind of a strange title for the movie. The old country sheriff's talked about that topic only briefly, and it really didn't have much to do with the plot. Weird.

[normiss 622]

Sailing To Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

William Butler Yeats

[chinagirl 0]

No, I did not see him leave the house with the suitcase either. I think it was insinuated that he got the money at the hotel. Based on his last action of killing the wife, his character is a psychopath that does what he says he's going to do regardless. And his priortiy/first job is to recovery the money...

~Built for Abuse
www.skydivethefarm.com

[JohnRich 4]

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Based on his last action of killing the wife, his character is a psychopath that does what he says he's going to do regardless.

SPOILER ALERT!

Yes, that was very strange. He may have been a cold-blooded killer, but he had a cold-blooded honor system to go with it. The hit man told the husband that if he didn't give him the money, he would kill his wife. The husband didn't cooperate. Therefore, even though the hit man still got the money anyway, he still had to go kill the wife, because he said he was going to do it, and he had to live up to his word, even though it no longer made any difference. Very cold...

Wife: "You don't have to do this."

Hit man: "Everyone I'm about to kill tells me that same thing."

Back to the money bag.

Did the husband have it when he checked into the motel in El Paso, where he was solicited by the seductress at the swimming pool? The next thing you know he's dead in the doorway, and a pickup truck is speeding away. I was thinking maybe the seductress set him up, had some male accomplices ambush him, steal his money bag, and then drive off. Was the hit man part of that action? That scene wasn't real clear to me what happened...

[chinagirl 0]

Yes, he was a part of that action. He used the same technique to break into the hotel room, by using that mechanism to blow out the door lock...

~Built for Abuse
www.skydivethefarm.com

[Misslmperfect 0]

ive tried and tried to figure out the ending to that movie and i've just decided that we're not supposed to know. we can assume that moss's wife died when anton shot her, but we don't really know.

i was really dissapointed in the ending, but i think it was intentionally, brutally vague. after the movie i was talking to the couple next to me and the man's impression, for some reason, was that anton was going to give the money to the gas station attendant for calling the coin right.

who knows.

Oh Canada, merci pour la livraison!

[VectorBoy 0]

Wasn't the seductress dead floating in the pool, whether she was part of the ambush or not, who knows? Shooting was done by the escaping mexicans not the hitman. The hitman was looking in hiding places for the money and prepared to ambush the sheriff who returned there in the evening but didn't..... and then was gone.

The wife and mother ( who gave up their destination to the mexicans) never met up with him before he was ambushed by the mexicans. So she didn't have the money. He stashed it without divulging to anyone the location, or had it with him and the mexicans got it.

The hit man visited the wife on principle not for the money she didn't have.

[Douva 0]

I call "The Emperor Has No Clothes" on the positive reviews this film has received. (SPOILERS)

The ending is intentionally vague and basically pointless. First, the filmmakers intentionally break one of the basic rules of filmmaking--the second act climax occurs off-screen--and then the entire third act opts for some sort of absurd commentary on the random, fleeting nature of life, rather than providing closure to the story.

And what is the point of introducing Barry Corbin's character in the third act? So that he can talk Tommy Lee Jones's character out of giving the movie a functional ending?

(HERE'S THE REAL SPOILER!)

If we'd seen Josh Brolin's character die, we might have been able to accept that as some sort of closure, but for him to be portrayed as the protagonist through most of the film, only to have his death occur off-screen and the film immediately switch to the point of view of Tommy Lee Jones's character and then go NOWHERE was extremely disappointing. For fifteen minutes or so we watch Tommy Lee Jones's character, our new protagonist, and wonder how he's going to wrap up everything we've seen so far; then, after his discussion with Barry Corbin's character (a character introduced in the third act for no apparent reason other than to provide the story with a little philosophical exposition), we're treated to his breakfast table recount of the too-obviously symbolic dream he had the night before, and then the credits roll.

Sorry, but I thought it was pseudo-artistic crap. Up until the death of Josh Brolin's character, the film was pretty good, but the third act sucked the big one. And if the critics weren't so afraid of questioning a film that makes such an obvious attempt to be "artistic"--particularly a film by the revered Coen brothers--they'd say so themselves.

If you loved the last episode of The Sopranos, you'll love this film. Honestly, I can't even say that, because I kind of liked the last episode of The Sopranos, but I still thought this film was crap.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[Douva 0]

FYI (More Spoilers)

I didn't find the ending vague; I just found it dumb.

The Mexicans find Llewelyn by talking to his mother-in-law (while they're helping her with her bags). They then gun him down at the motel where he is waiting to meet his wife and mother-in-law. But they gun him down so fast (as indicated by the sound of machine gun fire and the speeding getaway vehicle witnessed by Sheriff Bell) that they don't have time to search for the money. Llewelyn's wife and mother-in-law show up just after the murder has taken place and never have a chance to meet with Llewelyn or retrieve the money.

When Anton Chigurh visits the scene of the murder, that night, he knows the money is in the vent because he saw the scuff marks in the vent at the previous motel, where Llewelyn stashed the money. When Sheriff Bell returns to the scene of Llewelyn's murder, Chigurh is in the process of retrieving the money from the vent. Chigurh hides behind the door, and while Sheriff Bell is checking out the bathroom, Chirgurh escapes with the money. Sheriff Bell finds nothing in the room but the open vent.

The fact that Chirgurh doesn't have the money with him when he kills Llewelyn's wife and subsequently gets hit by another car means nothing because there is no indication of the amount of time that has passed between him retrieving the money and him going to kill Llewelyn's wife. The two events might have happened days or even weeks apart. If you had a suitcase containing two million dollars, how long would you carry it around with you?

As for the gas station owner and the coin toss at the beginning of the film, the "everything" Chigurh tells him he has to win is his life. It's inferred that if he'd lost, Chigurh would have killed him. It's never inferred that Chigurh has any intention of giving him any money.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[JohnRich 4]

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ive tried and tried to figure out the ending to that movie and i've just decided that we're not supposed to know. we can assume that moss's wife died when anton shot her, but we don't really know.

Yeah, it's a strange one.

While they didn't show the hit-man killing the wife, I assumed he went ahead and did it. And that's because when they show the hit-man coming out of the house, he pauses on the porch, lifts up each foot one at a time, and looks at the soles of his boots. I presumed that he was checking for blood to see if he was leaving tracks.

[JohnRich 4]

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The wife and mother ( who gave up their destination to the mexicans) never met up with him before he was ambushed by the mexicans. So she didn't have the money. He stashed it without divulging to anyone the location, or had it with him and the mexicans got it.

Thanks for those recollections. That's what I was thinking - that after all that trouble the husband and the hit-man went through trying to keep/get the money, that it just ended up in the hands of some ordinary bandits who committed a random robbery, and got really lucky.

But when the husband arrived at the motel, all he seemed to be carrying was a gun case, right? So where was the money?

[JohnRich 4]

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...Chigurh hides behind the door, and while Sheriff Bell is checking out the bathroom, Chirgurh escapes with the money...

You have excellent recall of all the details. Thanks!

[Samurai136 0]

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I call "The Emperor Has No Clothes" on the positive reviews this film has received.

Right on!

Transformers and Live Free or Die Hard were both better than this move.

"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken

[VectorBoy 0]

[The fact that Chirgurh doesn't have the money with him when he kills Llewelyn's wife

[normiss 622]

Transformers?????
SERIOUSLY??????

[Douva 0]

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[The fact that Chirgurh doesn't have the money with him when he kills Llewelyn's wife

We don't know this happened she could have possibly won a spiritual coin toss if not an actual toss, I believe she was killed though. We also don't know that Anton recovered the money, only that he looked for it. When Llewelyn arrived at the hotel he didn't have the satchel with him. He only had something that looked like a gun case. This leads me to believe that the money was stashed and he intended to only tell his wife its location but he was prepared for a counter ambush but not really well enough.