We hope you're ready for a little of the old ultraviolence, because No County for Old Men should be subtitled "No Hold Barred."
After Anton Chigurh brutally murders two innocent people in movie's first five minutes, you know you're in for a bloodbath. But don't expect any stylized action or lingering shots of carnage. In the West Texas of No Country, brutal violence is your standard weekday programming. After hearing about the murder of three Mexican gang members, Sheriff Ed Tom promptly says that they died of "natural causes"—as in, their deaths are natural for the dangerous life they've been living. It's not like we don't care about the deaths in this movie. But we have to wonder whether the universe cares about the deaths in this movie. There's never any dramatic music, only horrible silence.
Like Ed Tom Bell, we have to ask: what's the point?
Questions about Violence
- Do you think there's anything productive about all the violence in this movie, or is it just pointless blood for blood's sake? Why?
- Who is the most violent person in this movie? Why is he the way he is?
- Why does Ed Tom feel "overmatched" by the violence around him? What does he do about it?
- Why do we never get to see Llewellyn Moss killed? What larger point does this off-screen violence make?
Chew on This
In No Country for Old Men, we learn that there's really no larger point to all of humanity's violence. It's just a cold fact of life.
No Country shows us that hope can find meaning in even the most brutal types of violence.