In 'No Country for Old Men', a hunter named Llewelyn Moss discovers two million dollars in the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong. His decision to take the money sets off a violent chain reaction, as he becomes the target of a relentless and psychotic hitman named Anton Chigurh.
Tommy Lee Jones' closing dream monologue is the film: the genre rendered as the old sheriff realizing he never caught up.
The Coens film Chigurh as the absence of moral physics. The sheriff's closing dream is the only response left: an old man waking, realizing he can't catch up.
The Coens film Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff as the genre's witness, not its agent. The dream at the end is the genre realizing it never caught up.
Anton Chigurh isn't evil; he's a metaphysical accountant. His coin-flip philosophy reads as nihilism, but it indicts every faith in narrative justice you brought into the theater.
