It does seem more common for Brit actors to do good American accents than vice versa, don't ask me why. Probably because Britain is so much smaller, yet you can still get a serious variety of different regional accents within only a few hundred miles of each other.
He wasn't really a criminal. He was ex military who found Cartel money and took flight. Also it was supposed to be 1980 and its easy to walk into Mexico but harder to walk into the U.S.
Such a great touch, and something that makes this film a little bit more of a "period piece". There were so many Vietnam vets running around at the time, and so many of them had a complex relationship (at best) with government and law that of COURSE he would just be more willing to consider taking things for himself.
Up through the 90s it was pretty easy to walk into the US too in that area. Drunk college kids basically just had to be able to slur "American citizen" to get waved in.
Gas station dude deserves some high praise. He understood very quickly that Anton wasn't just being rude. But that he himself was in danger. Perfectly acted.
Some of the most deafening silence ever in a movie will be found in No Country for Old Men. Very daring choice to have basically no soundtrack but it really lends to the tenseness of the movie, making it feel more like we're watching real life. And all these years later I'm still trying to decide what Tommy Lee Jones' closing monologue was really about, I love it so much
@TJP 81 Not true. Unforgiven's got an amazing albeit understated score written by Lennie Niehaus (and the main theme is by Clint Eastwood). But I understand why you'd think that. No Country is heavily influenced by the themes of Unforgiven. And it's also a revisionist western in which 'deserve's got nothing to do with it.'
the dream is about his Father waiting for him in the after life(wandering around in the dark, cold) Tommys father died a young man.. "he went on ahead without him" but wherever his father is now.. he's making a fire (setting up a new home ) for when Tommy comes to meet him someday. :.D
Hes aware of Carla Jeans murder. The dreams meaning are basically saying he's truly terrified in that moment, that its messing with his soul. He doesnt even want to talk about them because hes admitting hes very scared. He's aware of Carla Jean's murder and he's probably aware that the ghost got away from the car accident which happened after the murder (assuming the monologue takes place much later after her death.) Carla Jean had literally nothing to do with Llewellyns shenanigans and had no knowledge of his actions, so the only reason to kill her is out of some sick code of discipline, the "principles" that Carson is talking about. Ed Tom knows the ghost came back looking for the money and didn't find it (like in his dream he lost the money too) so he probably deduces that her death was some threat he saw through, even though he didnt even get the money. Ed Tom is grappling with this realization, a truly calculated evil psychopath is still out there. The cold bitter wilderness in his dreams
I don't agree...he made a big mistake leaving all that money in the case. Not only because it had a tracking device but because it was so easily recognizable.
Even Moss knew it was moronic to return with water. He was foolish to bet his life and his loving wife's life on his ability to vanquish an unknown number of professionals.
16:00 Anton didn't kill her because she stuck to a code not to give out information and he respects her for it. He is code-driven and it became apparent to me when he asked Carosn "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?"
I seen this breakdown before and def don't think it's wrong I'd like to point out he hears a flush at the same moment realizing he is not alone, iv always wondered what part that played.
@@bryansmith1691 Anton sees himself as a someome who's just doing fate's work. You see how the toilet flush saves her from getting killed and how later the phone call gets the ceo agent killed. Also how the sheriff doesn’t die on the crime scene because anton leaves a coin on the floor, which means Anton tossed a coin to decide the sheriff's fate, so basically the sheriff survived by chance
@@sebastianwiton2907 That second part is totally incorrect. Anton is already gone from Lewellyn's room when the sheriff gets there. When we, the audience, see Anton hiding behind a door, it is just what the sheriff imagines. The coin is on the floor by the grate and some screws. Anton just used it to unscrew the grate , as is shown earlier in the film.
@@sebastianwiton2907 Yeah, it isn't the first time I have heard someone misinterpret it. The film definitely doesn't hold your hand. Which is cool, cause it leads to discussions of theme and meaning :)
Kathy Lamkin played the trailer park lady who wouldn’t give out information to Chigurh, she passed away earlier this month, good old Texas character actress Rip Kathy
My favorite part about this movie is that there isn't any music, even in the diners, stores, and cars, but it's so well made that you don't even notice.
When he did the coin flip at the gas station, I think he said the coin was from 1958 and it had traveled 22years to get to this point. So I’m guessing 1980 is the year the movie is set in.
This is my dad's favorite movie and grandpa passed away in 2020. I've always liked There Will Be Blood more, but getting older this is slowly starting to make more and more sense.
Everyone is fantastic in this, but it was Kelly McDonald that impressed me the most. She just disappears into that role so completely, it was incredible.
Love the edit. Most people don’t include the opening monologue, or the dream at the end. The writing is just SO GOOD. The book by Cormac McCarthy is freaking amazing - phenomenal adaptation.
The two dreams of his Ed tells his wife about - obviously set some time after the main story - are such powerful and poetic portents of death. No country for old men, indeed.
I'm sure it isn't supposed to be taken this way, but the line "Then I woke up" has always struck me as a man struggling with the idea of faith realizing that faith, like the dream about his father, was just that. A dream. Seeing what he has seen and dealing with what he has dealth with has left him calloused. He wants there to be something after this. He wants there to be a meaning to it all, but it is hard to square his life experiences with belief. He wants to drift into that dream, but he keeps waking up.
Honestly, Bell's narration of his second dream, I found to be one of the scariest/creepiest moments in the film, especially followed by the cut-to-black and the drumbeat music. And it didn't even involve Chigurh!
him getting hit by the car at the end after carefully looking at the child on the bike in the rear view and after showing the green light (being the careful cunning character he was throughout the whole film) to me is a perfect message. it doesnt matter how smart or smooth you think you are, life can screw you and humble you in a heartbeat. he was almost untouchable throughout the whole film and two steps ahead but got smashed into by a car almost making him a victim showing his broken bones. in the end nobody can beat life.
It is exactly what Tommy Lee Jones says when he tells the story about killing deer and shrapnel going to the guys hand. About the unexpected that you cannot control. That there is no certainty for anyone. Everything in the movie ties together beautifully.
The gas station scene is still one of the best things I've ever seen in a movie. It's one of those pieces of film where if a single character is a little bit different, or even played by another actor it could never be the same. Perfect mix of ingredients.
I'm really happy that you were able to fully appreciate this movie in all its subtlety. The Coen brothers made this movie for an intelligent audience and I'm happy to know that there are still members of the younger generation who are capable of picking up on that.
The air canister thing Anton carries around is something used to kill cows before they are butchered. It fires and then retracts at incredible speed around a 7 inch steel rod.
I love your visual *style* and that you spent 46 minutes on a basically simple screenplay/novel. Your reaction was also top notch. I edited my comment to tell you I'll watch more of your reactions.
It is also a bit of social commentary. If you notice, the most worked up anyone gets over a dead body in this movie is the deputy when he comments on the dead dog. We tend not to bat an eye when people are killed, but everyone draws a hard line at killing an animal.
The movie takes place in 1980. You get a clue about that in the scene between Anton and the gas station owner - Anton mentions the coin's year is 1958, and that it's been travelling 22 years to get to that moment.
One of those rare perfect films, and deserves to be called a Masterpiece. A movie so good it doesn’t even need any score or background music. Just raw emotions.
The Coen Bros are all time greats! Other movies they made that are incredible: Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, O'Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, and True Grit (2010) are all phenomenal!
The Coen Brothers studied film classes at "Film In The Cities" in MInneapolis. I was taking evening B&W still photograpy classes there and got to screen their first film made," Raising Arizona" before anyone in the public did. I laughed my ass off! The Big Labowski is my all time favorite comedy. Jeff Bridges and cast was great!!
People often seem to pass on Burn After Reading. It might not be their best (the rest of the filmography is so high though, difficult to top), but it is still really really good.
So glad this film is getting more recognition through reaction channels. I can watch this movie back to back and notice new details. Everyone killed it in their roles and the directing is god tier.
The foley work on this film was outstanding, she even mentions the echo of the bullets. That reminds me of Heat, which has the most amazingly realistic-sounding gunfight I've ever heard in all of cinema (you know the scene). Granted, I like NCFOM more, but both films are masterpieces worth checking out. Brilliant use of audio.
Me too, and not even realizing it was silence until my husband pointed it out. That was an intense movie and I'm glad I saw it at the theater before there was any buzz about it.
In both the film and book Llewelyn’s experience is mainly from serving in Vietnam. However in the book I believe it’s implied that he is a scout-sniper and has considerable survivalist experience.
And he probably did well as a scout-sniper because of where he grew up. Remember Audie Murphy was 5'3" and was virtually a unit unto himself in WWII because he grew up a hardscrabble life hunting for food for his mom and siblings after his father abandoned them in South Texas. It wasn't a place for sissies.
Also a cool bit of trivia, desert shots were filmed in Marfa, Texas. About 10 minutes from their location, There Will Be Blood was being filmed, in Marfa TX. The oil fire scene was interfering with the Coens shooting schedule. It forced them to film secondary units ahead of schedule. I go back and forth as to which film should have won Best Picture.
I'm only a couple minutes in to the reaction but I just have to say that this is one of the most best written, bet acted, best directed thrillers of all time. No music. NO music. You have no cues for how you're supposed to feel. It just is what it is, and what it is is terrifying!
That's an air powered bolt gun, we use those to put down cattle. Is overpowered to a degree where it can pop most lock bolts, including on some class 2 safes. They come in different sizes and with different loads (some are blank fired using gunpowder, some are air powered, others are using compressed nitrogen cartridges) but they are called captive bolt guns in all cases. And yeah, this is an accurate representation of how they work.
Did no one else notice how when Llewellyn made the call from inside the hotel and he slammed the phone on the reciever, the reason Anton turns his head is because he heard him do that, meaning they were in the same building the entire call
I got to watch this in school by my self in highschool (I had a really cool consoler who was one of the most humble/down to earth men I have ever gotten to know) and I thank him for it :)
The actress who plays Carla Jean's mom, Beth Grant, has been in three Best Picture winners (this, Rain Man, and The Artist), as well as Donnie Darko, Little Miss Sunshine, The Office, To Wong Foo, Speed, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Jackie, Flatliners, Jericho, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, The Mindy Project, etc. she's like the ultimate female "oh it's that guy"
"He's just too good at it" I loved that logic because I had the same thought watching the first time *(protagonist is seasoned criminal). Loved it more having seen it before that you shortly after realized he is a mere civilian and unfortunately that is more of a cue to his causation or existence -pays off later though- when his survival runs on the fumes of Vietnam
He noticed the dog's blood trail because it was going in the opposite direction, it crossed the path of the antelope blood trail. The Girl in The Cafe is my favorite Kelly McDonald movie.
Anton Chigurh is a metaphor for death itself. And death is random. It's a coin flip as to whether you die today or in 50 years. And since death is inevitable, it's better to have faith that someone has gone before you to make a fire against the dark and cold, than to believe in nothing or "not play" so to speak.
It's more so what Anton goes by, his code in a way. By refusing to make a call on the coin he's defeated, because he must break his code or the rules he abides by.
As a huge fan of the book, let me explain Anton Chigurh a bit. He's a contract killer, a very successful one, from a town far from there. Probably Kansas City, but definitely a metropolis. It's built into his character to mock the simple and random curtesy of the southern folk. He think it makes them stupid, thus him toying with the gas station owner. In the film it seems more like he's offended by the clerk's questions, but in truth, he is constantly looking for trouble. He thinks that he's a hand of fate, because every time he tests it, fate responds favorably. Before the movie starts, it's explained in the book that he kills a man in a diner for laughing at him. He told the man to come outside and they fought with their hands and he killed him nearly instantly. He left before anyone realized he was dead and then allowed himself to get caught by the police at the beginning of the film. He believed that he would escape if he really was a hand of fate, and had no doubt he would get out because so far, fate has never failed him. Then he escapes and decides that he's too good for these types of buffoons (that messed up the deal) and decides to take it all into his hands and become leader. After his car accident, where fate finally punished him for killing Moss' wife, he goes to the cartel and gives them the money, but tells them he's in charge now. Anton is much younger in the books, as well as Lewellyn. Thus the title. In this film they all seem a bit too old, except for Bell who is perfect. Anton comes off like the kid from the Catcher in the Rye, but a contract killer. A young one, maybe also in Vietnam. Carson and Lewellyn were also in Vietnam, thus their skills. Carson is from the same town as Anton, and is called in when Anton essentially betrays the city for their stupidity. They essentially have the same job, except Anton wasn't having Carson's BS this time and decided he was finally enough of a nuisance to kill. The best lines are butchered in the scene where Carson and Anton talk. Anton straight up explains why he is the way he is, saying that he's simply better than everyone else and that if they can stop him, do it. But no one can. He's just too good. And he falsely thinks this is fate, because he's become lost in his own capabilities that he questions his own reality. This lack of ego is what makes him seem insane, mostly. He's definitely a psychopath, but he rationalizes his murder like a soldier, having deep philosophical designs in his mind that make his actions fair game. He's possibly not a fundamentalist, but an absurdist and doesn't realize it -- recognizing the absurdity of post-modern values and coming up with his own, cynical sense of principles. He's a fantastic character.
OH MY GOD!!! I just never get over the dialouge in this movie! Fuckin amazing!! Cormac McCarthy is just one of the most beautiful and poetic writers of novels ever!
I've always been struck by that small scene where he says "If I don't come back, you tell mother I love her." 'Your mother's dead, Llewelyn.' "Well then I'll tell her myself."
No one ever talks about the one flaw in the film; the motel scene in El Paso, where the sheriff returns and we see Chigurh is in the room but when the sheriff enters the door hits the wall, so he is not hiding behind it. The sheriff goes through and checks the room and the bathroom window is locked and Chigurh is not in the room anymore. ??? Was the sheriff suppose to die in that scene and they changed the ending ??
That seen always makes me feel, as though Chigurh had been there, but not at the same time as the Sheriff. Waiting for someone else. In the moment the Sheriff is going to open the door, after noticing the lock was punch out. He was envisioning Chigurh waiting in ambush, though he wasn't there.
Unbelievable movie and such a great and pure reaction from Arianna! Love this channel. Y'all please keep cranking 'em out! Her facial expressions and hand gestures when she's surprised and an unexpected scene pops up are all pure gold for the channel! Full marks... Bravo 👏👏 👏 👏 👏
Great movie. I needed to watch it a second time to fully understand it. Glad you liked it, it's not your typical movie for entertainment. The writing, the performances, the Coen brothers...
Movie definitely portrayed the annoyance that introverts go through with strangers wanting to have small talk. Talking part in the gas station with Anton and the clerk only escalated once he got in his business.
15:33 - R.I.P. to Kathy Lamkin who played the "Desert Aire Manager". She just passed away this past week. On a more positive note, excellent review. Yes, that was Tommy Lee's voice narrating. He's maybe a notch below Morgan Freeman when it comes to great narrators.
38:34 the movie merges this scene with the hitchhike scene. *Llewellyn* picks up a 15 year old girl that gets killed in the shoot out. His wife was 16 when they got married.
When I watched this in theaters I didn’t like not knowing what happened to Carla Jean , but watching ur reaction video I noticed a small detail I didn’t at first . When he left her house he checked his boots (assuming for blood) …. So I’m guessing he did kill her after all
Ooh… we doin slow-burn character-studies with amazing actors? This one is a great choice! Perhaps „There Will Be Blood“ could be next? Also, „Lawrence of Arabia“ is out in 4k now :)
@@bobthabuilda1525 Except it really is. I watched that trash at x2 speed, and it was still so fucking slow. Don't get me wrong though, that garbage was great cinema back in the day. Not anymore.
There is an insane amount of detail and philosophy in this movie. Theres several potential meanings, one being life itself. The uncertainty of it. Anton is the personification of death in this interpretation. Coming from nowhere, having principles and requirements yet still so random and uncertain. Leaving some to chance. One thing about Anton that supports it, is that his last name, Chigurh, has no origin. Neither does his accent. This is because he is quite literally from nowhere. The accident he was in is also to show life's uncertainty, along with Llewelyn's death. Speaking of Llewelyn, he is not innocent, Anton was right, Llewelyn had a chance to save his wife. His own greed killed them both. Anton follows a code, and is just doing a job. Both I'd consider to be bad. And The Sheriff is as presented, tired, old, *uncertain* about his career. He wants out. The final scene sums up the entire movie's point. "Then I woke up." Its to signify that we'll never really know what comes after death until we get there, and we never no what'll happen until it does. Not to a certainty. As a side note, Llewelyn's wife's death shook Anton. The calculating nature of him was broken, if only for a second. It was the first time he ever killed someone without any additional motive. And when she rejected his coin toss, it let the desision lie on him and him alone, without his philosophy or chance to hide behind. This led to the car wreck.
Anton is by far my favourite character. Everyone says he's crazy, he's not. His principles you may not understand so you label him with what is comfortable for you. Anton Chigurh like Richard Kuklinski fascinate me.
I love the subtle aspects. When Llewelyn is wounded after the confrontation with Chigurh, he has to pay dumb teenagers to get their shirt, and then they fleece him even more for the beer. Later, Chigurh is in a seemingly random accident - probably repercussion for breaking the rules of his coin toss. The teenagers freely give the shirts off their back at no cost, but he pays them anyway (for silence rather than the shirt). It's probably a ko-in-ki-dink, but I always found the role reversal amusing.
I know they won't get as many views on YT, but I would really love to see some of the Coens' less-populst movies make it onto the channel, because they are as well-made as No Country, namely Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Hudsucker Proxy, True Grit, and The Man Who Wasn't There.
The tank of pressurized air Anton carries around pushes a long pin (about the size of a nail) out with extreme force. It's intended purpose is to kill cattle , but that's supposed to play into Anton's character. He just sees people as nothing more than cattle. By far one of my top favorite movie antagonists.
Something I admire about people like Sheriff Ed Tom is that in a high stress job, they are still able to maintain a sense of humor. I worked in a high stress job, and while I'm proud of my work ethic, I certainly failed to maintain much of a sense of humor when stress amped up.
Fun fact: his haircut came from a photo of a guy in a brothel decades ago that someone came across. Javier said after they gave him the haircut that he wasn't going to get laid for a long time. lol
this is Cormac McCarthy - one of the greatest living American novelists [Pulitzer, National Book Award]: All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994) and Cities of the Plain (1998),The Road (2006) - if you ever read anything you could do a lot worse than to start with Cormac - his very best is easily Blood Meridian (1985) [some claim it is the greatest American novel]
The novel is set in 1980, the last year of the Carter presidency, when conservatives like Sheriff Bell had serious concerns about the future of law & order and of the country. Chigurh says the 1958 quarter took 22 years to get there. The burning vehicle was a 1977 Ford.
28:11 you can actually get the year from a few lines here and there, but I always realised what it was from the shopkeeper coin-toss scene. When Anton says that coin is from/denotes 1958 and took 22 years to get here, meaning it is 1980.
haven't finished yet but, if you're still wondering what the thing with the air can is, it's a device used to kill farm animals for slaughter, ment to be quick and as painless as possible.
The dream Tommy Lee Jones tells at the end gives the thesis for the entire film. Many people don't like this movie because they don't get it. If you can work out what that dream means then the whole movie makes sense.
Such brilliant editing to have Ed Tom’s opening monologue line of “I don’t wanna push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand” coincide with the deputy putting the captive bolt gun in the front seat. She exclaimed “What is that!?” just like the Coen brothers intended.
New subscriber here, with this being your second reaction I’ve watched. You’re quickly among my favorites. Love your presentation and editing. The only improvement I can imagine, would be a brief commentary at the end. Keep up the good work. 🎬
Imo Anton killed the wife but bc she didn't call the coin it broke Anton's own fate. She forced him to make a decision, while to this point whether true or not he viewed all his actions as fate, unchangeable only reactive to the universe not proactive. I like to think that's what he was questioning when he got hit by the car he lost his 'super senses' if you will bc he was no longer an agent of the universe but an individual who had made his own decision an was no longer protected by fate. When I first watched I tried to think of ways she lived bc the actress is so likeable but ultimately Imo the most powerful theme is she died but destroyed Anton's ethos w her death.
@@sebastianwiton2907 maybe she offered him a glass of milk this pleased him decided not to kill her but spilt a little milk on his boots and wiped that off.. it's quite obvious.
Kelly Mcdonald does an incredible job as Carla Jean considering she's a Scottish actress. That accent is top notch.
It does seem more common for Brit actors to do good American accents than vice versa, don't ask me why.
Probably because Britain is so much smaller, yet you can still get a serious variety of different regional accents within only a few hundred miles of each other.
Yep
@@mnomadvfxVery true. I live in a town in North Yorkshire and you'd be amazed at how many accents there are in just a few miles away
She’s too young for Llewelyn.
@@0mnicide Weird thing to say considering you aren't told their age in the movie. The actors are only 8 years apart
He wasn't really a criminal. He was ex military who found Cartel money and took flight. Also it was supposed to be 1980 and its easy to walk into Mexico but harder to walk into the U.S.
Such a great touch, and something that makes this film a little bit more of a "period piece". There were so many Vietnam vets running around at the time, and so many of them had a complex relationship (at best) with government and law that of COURSE he would just be more willing to consider taking things for himself.
@@TheGoIsWin21 It also explains a regular citizen having significant combat/survival skills.
To be fair, it was fairly easy to enter back into the US as well. Live three miles from the border…
Bro you can still walk into Mexico unchecked man
Up through the 90s it was pretty easy to walk into the US too in that area. Drunk college kids basically just had to be able to slur "American citizen" to get waved in.
The coin toss scene is unbelievably well acted by both of them.
"Call it". One of the most iconic terrifying two word lines in movie history.
All of three of them. Don't forget about the candy wrapper
Check out Kevin James’ bit as the sound guy on the set - covering the scene
the character actors in this film were absolutely amazing
Gas station dude deserves some high praise. He understood very quickly that Anton wasn't just being rude. But that he himself was in danger. Perfectly acted.
Javier Bardem had the greatest reaction to his Prince Valiant haircut "I won't get laid for the next two months" 🤣
He won an Academy Award for the character so it must have been worth it.
@@kennethlane7645 he probably still got laid lol. He’s that dude
Lmfao deep cut reference
The Anton Chigurh character was voted the best example of a psychopath in any film by a group of Psychiatrists who studied 400 movies
I think it's one of the only vilain that really scare the crap out of me...
@@Comissar_Carolus he's pretty much the way I would picture the grip reaper
Terminator.
An obscure name for an evil that is ever present. Brilliant writing.
Too Bad The Hit Man Survived.
IF NO Sequel Was Coming,
Then Why Didn't He Meet a Untimely End
Worse Than What He Dished Out to His
Many Victims? 🤔
Some of the most deafening silence ever in a movie will be found in No Country for Old Men. Very daring choice to have basically no soundtrack but it really lends to the tenseness of the movie, making it feel more like we're watching real life. And all these years later I'm still trying to decide what Tommy Lee Jones' closing monologue was really about, I love it so much
@Sam Raffield the dream is about no country for old men
@TJP 81 Not true. Unforgiven's got an amazing albeit understated score written by Lennie Niehaus (and the main theme is by Clint Eastwood). But I understand why you'd think that. No Country is heavily influenced by the themes of Unforgiven. And it's also a revisionist western in which 'deserve's got nothing to do with it.'
the dream is about his Father waiting for him in the after life(wandering around in the dark, cold) Tommys father died a young man.. "he went on ahead without him" but wherever his father is now.. he's making a fire (setting up a new home ) for when Tommy comes to meet him someday. :.D
I wish they did more with tommy lee jones character.
Hes aware of Carla Jeans murder. The dreams meaning are basically saying he's truly terrified in that moment, that its messing with his soul. He doesnt even want to talk about them because hes admitting hes very scared. He's aware of Carla Jean's murder and he's probably aware that the ghost got away from the car accident which happened after the murder (assuming the monologue takes place much later after her death.) Carla Jean had literally nothing to do with Llewellyns shenanigans and had no knowledge of his actions, so the only reason to kill her is out of some sick code of discipline, the "principles" that Carson is talking about. Ed Tom knows the ghost came back looking for the money and didn't find it (like in his dream he lost the money too) so he probably deduces that her death was some threat he saw through, even though he didnt even get the money. Ed Tom is grappling with this realization, a truly calculated evil psychopath is still out there. The cold bitter wilderness in his dreams
36:54
Fun fact: He was reaching in his desk for his red stapler but couldn't get to it on time.
I heard it was his pack of wooden matches.
Office space and idiocracy are great documentaries
This is a movie where every single side:Llewellyn, Anton, and the sheriff are all very smart and super capable. It's refreshing lol
It is refreshing. Totally agree
I don't agree...he made a big mistake leaving all that money in the case. Not only because it had a tracking device but because it was so easily recognizable.
@@anthonyperez5757 it was 1980 and perhaps he didn't think drug gangs would have such hi tech stuff. No one would think that now.
Even Moss knew it was moronic to return with water. He was foolish to bet his life and his loving wife's life on his ability to vanquish an unknown number of professionals.
16:00 Anton didn't kill her because she stuck to a code not to give out information and he respects her for it. He is code-driven and it became apparent to me when he asked Carosn "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?"
I seen this breakdown before and def don't think it's wrong I'd like to point out he hears a flush at the same moment realizing he is not alone, iv always wondered what part that played.
@@bryansmith1691 Anton sees himself as a someome who's just doing fate's work. You see how the toilet flush saves her from getting killed and how later the phone call gets the ceo agent killed. Also how the sheriff doesn’t die on the crime scene because anton leaves a coin on the floor, which means Anton tossed a coin to decide the sheriff's fate, so basically the sheriff survived by chance
@@sebastianwiton2907 That second part is totally incorrect. Anton is already gone from Lewellyn's room when the sheriff gets there. When we, the audience, see Anton hiding behind a door, it is just what the sheriff imagines.
The coin is on the floor by the grate and some screws. Anton just used it to unscrew the grate , as is shown earlier in the film.
@@adgato75 thank you for clarifying that, someome can definetely misunderstand that part
@@sebastianwiton2907 Yeah, it isn't the first time I have heard someone misinterpret it. The film definitely doesn't hold your hand.
Which is cool, cause it leads to discussions of theme and meaning :)
Kathy Lamkin played the trailer park lady who wouldn’t give out information to Chigurh, she passed away earlier this month, good old Texas character actress Rip Kathy
Are we sure she just "passed away"...?
@@VG-fk6nk - She lost the coin flip!
"There's a lot of old people, and there's a lot of fat people, there ain't many fat old people though."
My favorite part about this movie is that there isn't any music, even in the diners, stores, and cars, but it's so well made that you don't even notice.
When he did the coin flip at the gas station, I think he said the coin was from 1958 and it had traveled 22years to get to this point. So I’m guessing 1980 is the year the movie is set in.
It is, you can also tell by the year of the vehicles.
It is. It is also why Vietnam was referenced several times. It was just a few years after that.
Also, the phone bill said June 5th 1980.
On an unrelated note, a quarter from 1958 is 90% silver, and is worth approximately $5 today.
ur a genius
Tommy Lee Jones.....such a treasure. I'm not ready for that generation of actors to go.
His opening and closing monologues are beyond amazing
But they are. They're riding up on ahead to make that fire in the dark and cold he was talking about.
My father died last June and listening to Ed Tom tell his wife the dream about his father hits me hard.
This is my dad's favorite movie and grandpa passed away in 2020. I've always liked There Will Be Blood more, but getting older this is slowly starting to make more and more sense.
The coin was from 1958. It traveled 22 years to get there. The movie takes place in 1980.
Everyone is fantastic in this, but it was Kelly McDonald that impressed me the most. She just disappears into that role so completely, it was incredible.
I knew Diane from Trainspotting would make it big in the movie industry!
Love the edit. Most people don’t include the opening monologue, or the dream at the end. The writing is just SO GOOD. The book by Cormac McCarthy is freaking amazing - phenomenal adaptation.
Yeah. The dream at the end is the point of the film. This isn’t Moss’ story, or Chigurh’s, but Ed Tom Bell’s.
The two dreams of his Ed tells his wife about - obviously set some time after the main story - are such powerful and poetic portents of death. No country for old men, indeed.
I'm sure it isn't supposed to be taken this way, but the line "Then I woke up" has always struck me as a man struggling with the idea of faith realizing that faith, like the dream about his father, was just that. A dream. Seeing what he has seen and dealing with what he has dealth with has left him calloused. He wants there to be something after this. He wants there to be a meaning to it all, but it is hard to square his life experiences with belief. He wants to drift into that dream, but he keeps waking up.
Honestly, Bell's narration of his second dream, I found to be one of the scariest/creepiest moments in the film, especially followed by the cut-to-black and the drumbeat music.
And it didn't even involve Chigurh!
him getting hit by the car at the end after carefully looking at the child on the bike in the rear view and after showing the green light (being the careful cunning character he was throughout the whole film) to me is a perfect message. it doesnt matter how smart or smooth you think you are, life can screw you and humble you in a heartbeat. he was almost untouchable throughout the whole film and two steps ahead but got smashed into by a car almost making him a victim showing his broken bones. in the end nobody can beat life.
Lol obvious observation try harder
It is exactly what Tommy Lee Jones says when he tells the story about killing deer and shrapnel going to the guys hand. About the unexpected that you cannot control. That there is no certainty for anyone. Everything in the movie ties together beautifully.
The gas station scene is still one of the best things I've ever seen in a movie. It's one of those pieces of film where if a single character is a little bit different, or even played by another actor it could never be the same. Perfect mix of ingredients.
Winner of 4 Oscars including Best Picture! It deserved to win those awards.
I'm really happy that you were able to fully appreciate this movie in all its subtlety. The Coen brothers made this movie for an intelligent audience and I'm happy to know that there are still members of the younger generation who are capable of picking up on that.
The air canister thing Anton carries around is something used to kill cows before they are butchered. It fires and then retracts at incredible speed around a 7 inch steel rod.
I love your visual *style* and that you spent 46 minutes on a basically simple screenplay/novel. Your reaction was also top notch. I edited my comment to tell you I'll watch more of your reactions.
“That’s a dead dog”
“...yes it is”
Low key such a funny line, always gets me
Supposedly a coyote won't eat a Mexican.
It is also a bit of social commentary. If you notice, the most worked up anyone gets over a dead body in this movie is the deputy when he comments on the dead dog. We tend not to bat an eye when people are killed, but everyone draws a hard line at killing an animal.
Wonderful performances by the actors. The accents were pitch perfect. And the writer captured the way rural Texans talked to each other in the 1970s.
One of my favorite films.. well deserved Oscar for Javier Bardem
The movie takes place in 1980. You get a clue about that in the scene between Anton and the gas station owner - Anton mentions the coin's year is 1958, and that it's been travelling 22 years to get to that moment.
One of those rare perfect films, and deserves to be called a Masterpiece.
A movie so good it doesn’t even need any score or background music. Just raw emotions.
The Coen Bros are all time greats! Other movies they made that are incredible: Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, O'Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, and True Grit (2010) are all phenomenal!
Don't forget Blood Simple. Also a classic.
The Coen Brothers studied film classes at "Film In The Cities" in MInneapolis. I was taking evening B&W still photograpy classes there and got to screen their first film made," Raising Arizona" before anyone in the public did. I laughed my ass off! The Big Labowski is my all time favorite comedy. Jeff Bridges and cast was great!!
People often seem to pass on Burn After Reading. It might not be their best (the rest of the filmography is so high though, difficult to top), but it is still really really good.
Love burn after reading
Miller's Crossing???
His weapon is a captive bolt pistol. Used to kill cattle before the slaughter.
So glad this film is getting more recognition through reaction channels. I can watch this movie back to back and notice new details. Everyone killed it in their roles and the directing is god tier.
The foley work on this film was outstanding, she even mentions the echo of the bullets. That reminds me of Heat, which has the most amazingly realistic-sounding gunfight I've ever heard in all of cinema (you know the scene). Granted, I like NCFOM more, but both films are masterpieces worth checking out. Brilliant use of audio.
that last line.. i remember seeing this in the theatre and just sitting there in stunned silence when it ended
Me too, and not even realizing it was silence until my husband pointed it out. That was an intense movie and I'm glad I saw it at the theater before there was any buzz about it.
In both the film and book Llewelyn’s experience is mainly from serving in Vietnam. However in the book I believe it’s implied that he is a scout-sniper and has considerable survivalist experience.
And he probably did well as a scout-sniper because of where he grew up. Remember Audie Murphy was 5'3" and was virtually a unit unto himself in WWII because he grew up a hardscrabble life hunting for food for his mom and siblings after his father abandoned them in South Texas. It wasn't a place for sissies.
Also a cool bit of trivia, desert shots were filmed in Marfa, Texas. About 10 minutes from their location, There Will Be Blood was being filmed, in Marfa TX. The oil fire scene was interfering with the Coens shooting schedule. It forced them to film secondary units ahead of schedule. I go back and forth as to which film should have won Best Picture.
Both films are absolutely fantastic, but I prefer There Will Be Blood personally
@@weebleman6 agreed. There will be blood have more depth, timeless and gonna aging beautifully
Maybe they could have met halfway in the semi-arid desert and have a Mexican Standoff.
both there will be blood and no country for old men are Forrest Gump and the shawshank redemption of the 2000's.
@@Nclake5485 90's
I'm only a couple minutes in to the reaction but I just have to say that this is one of the most best written, bet acted, best directed thrillers of all time. No music. NO music. You have no cues for how you're supposed to feel. It just is what it is, and what it is is terrifying!
yeah its maybe my No.3 favorite movie
Arianna is the best type of person to watch movies with. Her reactions are wonderful.
That's an air powered bolt gun, we use those to put down cattle. Is overpowered to a degree where it can pop most lock bolts, including on some class 2 safes.
They come in different sizes and with different loads (some are blank fired using gunpowder, some are air powered, others are using compressed nitrogen cartridges) but they are called captive bolt guns in all cases.
And yeah, this is an accurate representation of how they work.
Saw this TWICE in the Theater, only gets better with addition viewings. A Classic in my mind.
Did no one else notice how when Llewellyn made the call from inside the hotel and he slammed the phone on the reciever, the reason Anton turns his head is because he heard him do that, meaning they were in the same building the entire call
I got to watch this in school by my self in highschool (I had a really cool consoler who was one of the most humble/down to earth men I have ever gotten to know) and I thank him for it :)
The actress who plays Carla Jean's mom, Beth Grant, has been in three Best Picture winners (this, Rain Man, and The Artist), as well as Donnie Darko, Little Miss Sunshine, The Office, To Wong Foo, Speed, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Jackie, Flatliners, Jericho, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, The Mindy Project, etc. she's like the ultimate female "oh it's that guy"
Javier Bardem"s portrayal of a psychopath is, hands down, the most accurate I've ever seen.
How many cold Blooded cartel hitmen have you encountered to be a reliable source???
"He's just too good at it" I loved that logic because I had the same thought watching the first time *(protagonist is seasoned criminal).
Loved it more having seen it before that you shortly after realized he is a mere civilian and unfortunately that is more of a cue to his causation or existence -pays off later though- when his survival runs on the fumes of Vietnam
Do you notice how this movie has no soundtrack ? You can't tell if danger is around the corner or not. It keeps you on your toes thinking " WHEN ?"
He noticed the dog's blood trail because it was going in the opposite direction, it crossed the path of the antelope blood trail.
The Girl in The Cafe is my favorite Kelly McDonald movie.
He broke the Hunters Code: he followed another Hunters kill.
Had he kept on the trail of the animal he shot, he would have lived.
Anton Chigurh is a metaphor for death itself. And death is random. It's a coin flip as to whether you die today or in 50 years. And since death is inevitable, it's better to have faith that someone has gone before you to make a fire against the dark and cold, than to believe in nothing or "not play" so to speak.
It's more so what Anton goes by, his code in a way. By refusing to make a call on the coin he's defeated, because he must break his code or the rules he abides by.
it's set in 1980; when Chigur is at the gas station he says the year on the coin is 1958, and that it had traveled 22 years to get there
Was going to say this.
As a huge fan of the book, let me explain Anton Chigurh a bit. He's a contract killer, a very successful one, from a town far from there. Probably Kansas City, but definitely a metropolis. It's built into his character to mock the simple and random curtesy of the southern folk. He think it makes them stupid, thus him toying with the gas station owner. In the film it seems more like he's offended by the clerk's questions, but in truth, he is constantly looking for trouble. He thinks that he's a hand of fate, because every time he tests it, fate responds favorably. Before the movie starts, it's explained in the book that he kills a man in a diner for laughing at him. He told the man to come outside and they fought with their hands and he killed him nearly instantly. He left before anyone realized he was dead and then allowed himself to get caught by the police at the beginning of the film. He believed that he would escape if he really was a hand of fate, and had no doubt he would get out because so far, fate has never failed him. Then he escapes and decides that he's too good for these types of buffoons (that messed up the deal) and decides to take it all into his hands and become leader. After his car accident, where fate finally punished him for killing Moss' wife, he goes to the cartel and gives them the money, but tells them he's in charge now.
Anton is much younger in the books, as well as Lewellyn. Thus the title. In this film they all seem a bit too old, except for Bell who is perfect. Anton comes off like the kid from the Catcher in the Rye, but a contract killer. A young one, maybe also in Vietnam. Carson and Lewellyn were also in Vietnam, thus their skills. Carson is from the same town as Anton, and is called in when Anton essentially betrays the city for their stupidity. They essentially have the same job, except Anton wasn't having Carson's BS this time and decided he was finally enough of a nuisance to kill.
The best lines are butchered in the scene where Carson and Anton talk. Anton straight up explains why he is the way he is, saying that he's simply better than everyone else and that if they can stop him, do it. But no one can. He's just too good. And he falsely thinks this is fate, because he's become lost in his own capabilities that he questions his own reality. This lack of ego is what makes him seem insane, mostly. He's definitely a psychopath, but he rationalizes his murder like a soldier, having deep philosophical designs in his mind that make his actions fair game. He's possibly not a fundamentalist, but an absurdist and doesn't realize it -- recognizing the absurdity of post-modern values and coming up with his own, cynical sense of principles. He's a fantastic character.
OH MY GOD!!! I just never get over the dialouge in this movie! Fuckin amazing!! Cormac McCarthy is just one of the most beautiful and poetic writers of novels ever!
I've always been struck by that small scene where he says
"If I don't come back, you tell mother I love her."
'Your mother's dead, Llewelyn.'
"Well then I'll tell her myself."
Fr. It's low key really sweet. Like saying the only I aint coming back to you is if I'm dead.
Well, I hope he did! Nah, I know it's not real but; Is "real" life real!!
I counted the floors on the way up. And? There's one missing.
@@DominusLuna That used to be very typical to skip over 13 for a floor number. Not surprising at all for a film set in the time period it was.
No one ever talks about the one flaw in the film; the motel scene in El Paso, where the sheriff returns and we see Chigurh is in the room but when the sheriff enters the door hits the wall, so he is not hiding behind it. The sheriff goes through and checks the room and the bathroom window is locked and Chigurh is not in the room anymore. ???
Was the sheriff suppose to die in that scene and they changed the ending ??
That seen always makes me feel, as though Chigurh had been there, but not at the same time as the Sheriff. Waiting for someone else.
In the moment the Sheriff is going to open the door, after noticing the lock was punch out. He was envisioning Chigurh waiting in ambush, though he wasn't there.
I can watch this film forever and still see things that I've missed. An amazing film... 🎥
Unbelievable movie and such a great and pure reaction from Arianna! Love this channel. Y'all please keep cranking 'em out! Her facial expressions and hand gestures when she's surprised and an unexpected scene pops up are all pure gold for the channel! Full marks... Bravo 👏👏 👏 👏 👏
Great movie. I needed to watch it a second time to fully understand it. Glad you liked it, it's not your typical movie for entertainment. The writing, the performances, the Coen brothers...
One of the most intense films ever made. Love every aspect of this flick.
Movie definitely portrayed the annoyance that introverts go through with strangers wanting to have small talk. Talking part in the gas station with Anton and the clerk only escalated once he got in his business.
Great that you showed the entirety of the quarter scene 9:25 Imo, Its high on the list of the best scenes in film history.
15:33 - R.I.P. to Kathy Lamkin who played the "Desert Aire Manager". She just passed away this past week. On a more positive note, excellent review. Yes, that was Tommy Lee's voice narrating. He's maybe a notch below Morgan Freeman when it comes to great narrators.
38:34 the movie merges this scene with the hitchhike scene. *Llewellyn* picks up a 15 year old girl that gets killed in the shoot out.
His wife was 16 when they got married.
Whoever edited this video together did a fantastic job! Excellent Reaction 😊
When I watched this in theaters I didn’t like not knowing what happened to Carla Jean , but watching ur reaction video I noticed a small detail I didn’t at first . When he left her house he checked his boots (assuming for blood) …. So I’m guessing he did kill her after all
Oh yeah she dead
Old country for no men(as she might say it during the intro?) is one of my favorites.
Ooh… we doin slow-burn character-studies with amazing actors? This one is a great choice! Perhaps „There Will Be Blood“ could be next? Also, „Lawrence of Arabia“ is out in 4k now :)
Yo, Lawrence of Arabia is soooooo fucking slow and boring though.
@@VG-fk6nk No it isn't
@@bobthabuilda1525 Except it really is. I watched that trash at x2 speed, and it was still so fucking slow.
Don't get me wrong though, that garbage was great cinema back in the day. Not anymore.
@@VG-fk6nk I've seen it about 8 times since 1971. I love it.
But if you want a David Lean epic with action - The Bridge on the River Kwai.
One of the best films of all time. Not a single note of music. Pure intensity.
Mariachi band
@@nealkellytheoriginal trueeeee haha.
The film is based in the year 1980. I figured it out after he tells the gas station owner the date on the coin is 1958 and it travelled 22 years.
Your reactions are so genuine. I absolutely love watching you.
There is an insane amount of detail and philosophy in this movie. Theres several potential meanings, one being life itself. The uncertainty of it. Anton is the personification of death in this interpretation. Coming from nowhere, having principles and requirements yet still so random and uncertain. Leaving some to chance. One thing about Anton that supports it, is that his last name, Chigurh, has no origin. Neither does his accent. This is because he is quite literally from nowhere.
The accident he was in is also to show life's uncertainty, along with Llewelyn's death. Speaking of Llewelyn, he is not innocent, Anton was right, Llewelyn had a chance to save his wife. His own greed killed them both. Anton follows a code, and is just doing a job.
Both I'd consider to be bad.
And The Sheriff is as presented, tired, old, *uncertain* about his career. He wants out. The final scene sums up the entire movie's point. "Then I woke up." Its to signify that we'll never really know what comes after death until we get there, and we never no what'll happen until it does. Not to a certainty.
As a side note, Llewelyn's wife's death shook Anton. The calculating nature of him was broken, if only for a second. It was the first time he ever killed someone without any additional motive. And when she rejected his coin toss, it let the desision lie on him and him alone, without his philosophy or chance to hide behind. This led to the car wreck.
Anton is by far my favourite character. Everyone says he's crazy, he's not. His principles you may not understand so you label him with what is comfortable for you. Anton Chigurh like Richard Kuklinski fascinate me.
Or you may be slightly idealizing and identificating to those people, so you label them with what is comfortable for you.
@@cloodlorken I wouldn't say comfortable, more like I understand them.
Javier Bardem is incredibly frightening in this film. Just shows how gifted of an actor he is.
One of the most sinister villians' I've ever seen in a movie.
I love the subtle aspects. When Llewelyn is wounded after the confrontation with Chigurh, he has to pay dumb teenagers to get their shirt, and then they fleece him even more for the beer. Later, Chigurh is in a seemingly random accident - probably repercussion for breaking the rules of his coin toss. The teenagers freely give the shirts off their back at no cost, but he pays them anyway (for silence rather than the shirt). It's probably a ko-in-ki-dink, but I always found the role reversal amusing.
I know they won't get as many views on YT, but I would really love to see some of the Coens' less-populst movies make it onto the channel, because they are as well-made as No Country, namely Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Hudsucker Proxy, True Grit, and The Man Who Wasn't There.
The tank of pressurized air Anton carries around pushes a long pin (about the size of a nail) out with extreme force. It's intended purpose is to kill cattle , but that's supposed to play into Anton's character. He just sees people as nothing more than cattle. By far one of my top favorite movie antagonists.
The hostel chase is one of my favorite suspense sequence of all movies I’ve watched.
What I like about Anton Chigurgh is the fact that he stands out among everyone,but he's hardly noticed by them . Kind of like a ghost.
One of my favorite movies of all time, almost never skip anyone's reaction of it
Woody Harrelson's real-life father was a hitman. Some people speculate he was one of the men who killed JFK.
Something I admire about people like Sheriff Ed Tom is that in a high stress job, they are still able to maintain a sense of humor. I worked in a high stress job, and while I'm proud of my work ethic, I certainly failed to maintain much of a sense of humor when stress amped up.
The scene with the coin flip tells you what year the movie is set in
I fucking love this reaction! This lady is super smart and gets it. A wonderful video experience, all around.
Enjoyed her reaction but she did wrongly speculate a lot.
Good observation of the cowboys criminal instincts, I never noticed that before.
It's not criminal Instincts it's survival Instincts from Vietnam
Fun fact: his haircut came from a photo of a guy in a brothel decades ago that someone came across. Javier said after they gave him the haircut that he wasn't going to get laid for a long time. lol
this is Cormac McCarthy - one of the greatest living American novelists [Pulitzer, National Book Award]: All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994) and Cities of the Plain (1998),The Road (2006) - if you ever read anything you could do a lot worse than to start with Cormac - his very best is easily Blood Meridian (1985) [some claim it is the greatest American novel]
Yeah the blood meridian is incredible
Kelly Macdonald did an amazing accent in this movie.
Yep! Everything about this movie says 80s. 80s model vehicles. All landlines and a landline phone bill. No cell phones.
The novel is set in 1980, the last year of the Carter presidency, when conservatives like Sheriff Bell had serious concerns about the future of law & order and of the country.
Chigurh says the 1958 quarter took 22 years to get there.
The burning vehicle was a 1977 Ford.
There Will Be Blood. That's all I'm gonna say.
Love this film! If you're a fan of Josh Brolin you should react to Only the Brave. Incredible movie as well, and based on a true story
19:25 He was a Colonel in the Vietnam War. I think his time in that meat grinder prepared him for this.
Exactly
28:11 you can actually get the year from a few lines here and there, but I always realised what it was from the shopkeeper coin-toss scene. When Anton says that coin is from/denotes 1958 and took 22 years to get here, meaning it is 1980.
haven't finished yet but, if you're still wondering what the thing with the air can is, it's a device used to kill farm animals for slaughter, ment to be quick and as painless as possible.
The dream Tommy Lee Jones tells at the end gives the thesis for the entire film. Many people don't like this movie because they don't get it. If you can work out what that dream means then the whole movie makes sense.
Ariana is the best.
That coin toss scene was brilliant.
Such brilliant editing to have Ed Tom’s opening monologue line of “I don’t wanna push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don’t understand” coincide with the deputy putting the captive bolt gun in the front seat. She exclaimed “What is that!?” just like the Coen brothers intended.
Oh yeah, looking forward to this one. Perfect reactor for this too. She's gonna have a damn fit.
New subscriber here, with this being your second reaction I’ve watched. You’re quickly among my favorites. Love your presentation and editing. The only improvement I can imagine, would be a brief commentary at the end. Keep up the good work. 🎬
Commentary is linked at the end of the video :)
This movie is set in 1980. The coin he flipped was a 1958 and he said that it had been traveling 22 years.
Imo Anton killed the wife but bc she didn't call the coin it broke Anton's own fate.
She forced him to make a decision, while to this point whether true or not he viewed all his actions as fate, unchangeable only reactive to the universe not proactive.
I like to think that's what he was questioning when he got hit by the car he lost his 'super senses' if you will bc he was no longer an agent of the universe but an individual who had made his own decision an was no longer protected by fate.
When I first watched I tried to think of ways she lived bc the actress is so likeable but ultimately Imo the most powerful theme is she died but destroyed Anton's ethos w her death.
He killed her. It is why he checks his boots afterwards.
@@adgato75 I swear some people miss that detail but it's so obvious XD
@@adgato75 obviously... Idk who your telling
@@sebastianwiton2907 maybe she offered him a glass of milk this pleased him decided not to kill her but spilt a little milk on his boots and wiped that off.. it's quite obvious.
My favorite part of this movie is that our three main characters are never face to face.