However, I found it curious that you felt throughout the film that it was going nowhere. For the most part, it plays out like any thriller does — a cat and mouse chase between the hero and the villain. The masterfully paced scenes in the motel and the hotel played out with tension equal to that of a Hitchcock thriller. Only in the end does the film change directions.

I find it surprising that so many viewers complain there is no more originality in films today, but reject films that do not end in the typical way. I believe the uneasiness that you felt at the end of this film, like things didn’t come together, is exactly what the Coen Bros. wanted.

The film is about the randomness of life and death. You have invested an entire film caring about what happens to Moss and then he dies in an unceremonious way. On an emotional level, it affects us in an uncommon way for film. We say, “hey, wait, that’s not fair” or “hey, you’re cheating.” The Coens are reminding us of the expression “life’s not fair.” Most films portray the world the way we wish it were, but brave films portray the world the way it really is.

Perhaps there is too much to read between the lines and for an average joe that just doesn’t make any sense. Everyone in the theatre had the same look and I heard asking what had just happened on screen. The only points would be for the cinematography.

You’re right the central character does get killed quite suddenly. But was Janet Leigh’s untimely demise around the halfway mark of PSYCHO unsatisfying? What NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN gives us is a central character in Llewelyn Moss and a main character in Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. I look at this film in the same way as I do SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION where Tim Robbins’ Andy Dufresne is the central character, but the story ends up being the character arch of Morgan Freeman’s narrator Red.

NO COUNTRY starts with Bell’s voice over about a senseless murder that has haunted him his whole career. The title of the film refers to Bell not Moss. After Moss is killed, Bell visits his brother, who talks about how the world has always been brutal and that the only reason Ed perceives it as being worse is that he no longer has the stomach for it. The emotional toll that the Moss case puts on Bell spurs him to retire. Bell can no longer make sense of senseless death anymore.

As for the cat and mouse chase that Moss plays with Anton Chigurh, it’s the same cat and mouse chase that we all play with death. The scene were Chigurh taunts the gas station owner with the flip of the coin and at the end when Chigurh gets into the car accident just underscore the randomness of life and death. We don’t know when our last day will be. If the crazed assassin doesn’t get us, it might be the Mexican drug dealers. And it doesn’t matter whether we are good or bad, death eventually comes for us all whether we are ready for it or not and we cannot plead to the grim reaper to spare us.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN gives us two films in one — the tragedy of Llewelyn Moss, who doesn’t get to die like a hero as the movies have led us to believe all good men in these situations deserve if they don’t succeed, and Ed Tom Bell, who is plagued by survivor’s remorse and his inability to stop death. In life, as in the film, you either have to accept the chaos of living or retire.