You know how a great movie pulls you in and right from the outset you form a connection with the main character? And aren’t you just captivated when – after enjoying that character’s white-knuckle journey for an hour and a half – he’s suddenly killed off-screen with zero explanation and never mentioned again? Don’t you just love that? Bosh. And shame on you, Coen brothers, for getting my emotions wrapped up in the axle of Llewelyn Moss if you weren’t going to even let me see how he died. Give me a blaze of glory, some regretful last words, even a look of painful realization as he loses the big gamble.
Nope, he’s just dead. Moving on.
It’s the single greatest tragedy in a movie that glorified meaningless tragedy and ended up becoming what it preached, and all the worse for the fact that it was a stunning film up until that point. The performances were superb across the board, the villain so complex and intriguing that you somehow respected him – like Hannibal Lector with all the psychopath and none of the cannibalism – but it was all wasted. The movie just couldn’t stick the landing, so let’s fix it. And sorry, Cormac McCarthy, we’re not going with your version, either.
No Country For Old Men begins with Llewelyn Moss stumbling upon a drug deal gone bad while hunting in the Texas wilderness. He discovers a suitcase of cash and begins a cat and mouse game trying to conceal the money from a drug cartel and its hitmen. Local Sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, investigates the murders that stack up in Llewellyn’s and the cartel’s wake.
After a shootout, Lewellyn and the hitman Chigurh (both injured) have a tense phone call from their separate hideouts where Lewellyn doubles down on his intention to fight it out. Chigurh threatens to seek out Llewellyn’s wife, Carla.
Let’s pick up the story right there with the new version.
The Nerd Cut: No Country For Old Men
Llewelyn calls Carla and tells her to flee to a motel in a far-away town where he’ll meet her. She packs to leave but the bounty hunter Carson Wells (hired by the cartel after losing contact with Chigurh) finds her at home and confronts her with Llewelyn’s story and predicament. He offers to help her but she rightly guesses he’s only after Llewelyn, too, and flees out a bedroom window. Chigurh shows up directly after she flees, and he and Wells have a confrontation with the coin flip (same conversation as he has with Carla) which Wells loses. They end up in a grappling fight with Chigurh killing Wells.
Carla, knowing nothing about the money, gets on a bus to meet Llewelyn, reluctantly having to abandon her elderly mother.
Meanwhile, Llewelyn picks up an underage hitchhiker in the same manner as in the book. He takes on a kind of fatherly appreciation for her and gives her a stack of hundreds and a warning to be wary of strangers when she gets to L.A., just like in the book version.
The cartel hitmen arrive at the motel. Llewelyn fights them, and in the process of killing them both he and the hitchhiker are injured. He takes her to a hospital where she dies from her injuries. We finally see Llewelyn break down for having caused her death. He realizes all of the innocent people who’ve been murdered on account of his greed and he determines to protect Carla if he still can, money be damned.
Llewelyn returns to the motel Carla is supposed to meet him at, finds police everywhere and stations himself in a nearby café to wait for her. Sheriff Bell senses Llewelyn may be waiting nearby and determines to find Carla, which he does when she gets off the bus, as does Llewelyn.
Bell confronts the reunited couple over a cup of coffee and – still unaware of the money Llewelyn has stolen from the cartel, or the rationale for the whole mess – tries to convince them to return home of their own accord and piece together the whole sordid tale for law enforcement.
Bell: “What are you running for? Money? Fear? Are you gonna just keep this up your whole life? It’s not much of a life.”
Llewelyn: “Sometimes you get covered in a stink that just won’t come off. You just keep goin’. I ain’t afraid of nothin’.”
Bell looks at Carla. “How ‘bout her?”
Carla, looking confused and scared, stares at her husband. Says weakly: “We go together.”
Bell shakes his head and tells them he’s going to have to arrest them if they don’t come with him voluntarily. As they leave the café together, Chigurh shoots Bell. Llewelyn and Chigurh have another shootout. Carla is injured in a similar manner as the hitchhiker and Llewelyn steals a car to speed her away.
Bell, injured but still alive, pursues Chigurh and wounds him before falling from his injuries and blood loss. Chigurh gets away, gets hit by a car (same as in the movie and the book) and manages to limp away into the night.
A year later we find Bell going over the events of the unsolved case with FBI and DEA agents who are only interested in finding Llewelyn and Carla, and who doubt that the mythical Chigurh even existed.
Bell returns home where he has a conversation with his old partner about the wasted lives, the indifference of the Feds toward the unsolved murders, the reality of evil, and the fate of those who place such value in things other than human life.
Bell: “My daddy always told me to just do the best you knew how and tell the truth. He said there was nothin’ to set a man’s mind at ease like wakin’ up in the morning and not havin’ to decide who you were. And if you done somethin’ wrong just stand up and say you done it and say you’re sorry and get on with it. Don’t haul stuff around with you.” [quoted from the book]
We get a final shot in Louisiana of Llewelyn and Carla – who now walks with a cane – walking out of a café into a rusty pick-up truck. As they pull out, a police cruiser passes behind them and gives a few beats from its siren. Llewelyn reaches under the seat and retrieves a submachine gun but realizes the cop is interested in someone else. Llewelyn looks at Carla, who gives a disgusted look, lays her head against the glass and stares out the window. Llewelyn drives away.
“Sorry,” he says.
“Yeah. I know.”
[end credits]
I hope this version wipes out the unsatisfactory aftertaste of the original’s celebration of nihilism. In the real world our actions have meaningful consequences for us and others. Sometimes it takes trauma to realize that, sometimes people learn it too late and have to deal with those consequences for the rest of their lives. Writers need to learn how to convey these lessons in ways that don’t disrespect the audience.
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Speaking of great stories…The Princess Bride is perfect, but does it need a sequel? Before you shake your head, check out The Dread Pirate Roberts my fan fiction sequel to The Princess Bride.
The Dread Pirate Roberts tells the tale of Trajan, a young Guilderian on a quest to avenge the death of his father, killed by the current Dread Pirate Roberts . His efforts are quickly altered by Westley and other previous Dread Pirate Robertses, who decide to train and assist Trajan in his quest. Read the entire book for free.
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