Writer: Joel & Ethan Coen
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald
Llewelyn Moss; welder, hunter and Vietnam veteran comes across a scene of a drug deal thats has gone wrong. Surrounded by dead bodies, a truck sits filled with heroin and one wounded Mexican. Hunting for the 'last man standing', Moss finds him under a tree with a bag containing over $2 million which he takes back home, maybe in some attempt to boost the quality of life for him and his wife, Carla Jean. Returning to massacre later with water for the dying Mexican, who has since died, Moss is spotted by some gunmen probably coming for the drugs.
Knowing he is in danger he sends Carla Jean to stay with her mother and leaves home with the money. From this point on there are numerous teams and people who are trying to find Moss for a multitude of reasons.
- Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and a law enforcement team are investigating the drugs crime as well as trying to protect Moss and Carla Jean.
- Anton Chigurh a psychopathic killer who is hired as a hitman to retrieve the money from the drugs deal. He has a sick sense of fun in making people gamble for their lives with the flip of a coin and a haunting way of saying 'call it'. Chigurh hunts Moss for the duration of the film, but is just beaten at the end by the group of Mexicans.
- Carlson Wells is another hitman who is also on the hunt for the stolen money who has encountered Chigurh before.
- A group of Mexicans are looking for the money too. they beat Chigurh to Moss and kill him, but do not find the money as they don't have the same intellect.
In the end, Moss is killed by the Mexicans and Carla Jean is implied to have been killed by Chigurh down to a promise he made to Moss. Bell retires from the police force feeling out matched and Chigurh is injured in a car accident but bribes two teenagers not to say anything about him.
There is a sense of justice within the film, much like The man who wasn't there, where Moss is punished for taking the money by murder, and Carla Jean is killed down to his refusal to trade the money for her life. He thought he could have it all and easily.
The coin toss illustrates decision and the value of those decisions although barbaric and corrupt people have a choice. Bell had a choice of two rooms, Chigurh was in one, but he chose the other and survived.
I did enjoy this film, it doesn't seem to follow the chaotic style of filming that I have come to expect of the Coen brothers as it all seemed very linear and real, but the drama and the depth into which the characters are explored draws you into it more.
I think this would be a good film to study as there are many different internal and external locations and plenty of different lighting techniques to use. The lighting is similar to Blood Simple the first film by the Coen brothers and has aspects of well lit rooms, to vastly black areas with snippets of highlight.
