In one of their first conversations in the trailer, Moss says something about being "free, white, and twenty-one." Carla Jean responds "I ain't twenty-one." That confused me a bit - I thought maybe it meant she was older but not exactly 21 - but when her age was revealed later I wasn't completely surprised.

(I didn't read the book first, though.)

Dude...there was nothing ambiguous about the ending. What did you have to decide? The only thing to decide is the meaning of the speech at the end, and thats on a personal, philosophical level.

yeah, its pretty obvious that chugarh has the money.

Having a conversation with my friend about this movie, we diverged on the meaning of the dream. I'm curious what you all think of dream, the meaning of the movie, and how those two relate.

My thinking was that, given his lack of faith and failure to feel or see God, the end dream hinges on his last words (and the last words of the movie): "and then I woke up". The dream is about not being able to see, or know that God will be there, around the corner, waiting for you; but God WILL be there when you arrive. Finishing on that point would lead me to believe that the crux of the movie is that even if this is a violent country not fit 'for old men', God still exists, and will be there for you; but finishing on 'and then i woke up', tells me that God doesn't exist.

My friend thinks that, due to Tommy Lee Jones' tone in saying the last line, it only means that it's just a dream, and not anything more. Due to him not really having interest in talking about it with his wife probing him, and his nonchalant way of saying "and then I woke up", the dream is important but not a declaration of anything.

First off, where the hell did ppl come up with this? Lol. I think its fairly clear that Chigurh gets the money. Also, what the *** would you have liked to have seen happen at THE END, huh? Please tell me what you wanted to happen at THE END of this movie?

I wanted Chigurh to get in a massive car chase with Tommy Lee Jones which goes on for 20 minutes climaxing in Chigurh's car flying into the Rio Grande where Chigurh dies.

OR DOES HE???

Would have made for a much better ending

Answer your own question for me please. I want to know what you think, because I think I am too stupid to see it.

I am not being facetious or levelling you, I really want to see you explain the theme of this movie so that I can learn from it.

Something other than the bad guy buying some kid's shirt and stumbling off down the street, and then an old sheriff recounting a dream he had, would have been nice.

Seriously the problem with the ending wasn't in it's ambiguity. It was just an anti-climactic ending to an hour-and-a-half long chase movie.

This is a tough world we live in and its often random and unfair. It has also been this way for a long long time and will not be changing any time soon. There will always be evil and crazy s*it happening to people and if you dont think so, you better wake up just like Sheriff Bell did.

I like this snippet written by Eric Snider:

The film has a potent mix of suspense and laughter. The Coens find a lot of dark, accidental humor in all of this, and also devote quiet attention to the details of Moss and Chigurh's cat-and-mouse game. Moss proves to be a resourceful and intelligent man, maybe even capable of outsmarting the seemingly unstoppable Chigurh. Consequently, every scene is riveting because you never know which way it's going to go.

That includes the ending, which at first glance may feel disappointing. Something about it stuck in my craw -- yet I could tell that the problem was with me, not with McCarthy or the Coens. I was missing something. Seeing the film a second time, I caught subtleties I had missed at first, and everything fell into place. It's a mistake to take the film for a simple crime thriller. You look at it that way and you'll surely be let down by the conclusion. Look at it instead as a story about the capriciousness of fate, about how lives can be changed in the blink of an eye in ways that are unpredictable and unfair. One character even vocalizes the film's theme outright: "You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity."

Great thread about the motel room scene: http://www.ericdsnider.com/blog/2008...he-motel-room/

I guess my problem is that, for the first 2/3 of the movie, it IS a simple crime thriller. It's basically one long chase, and it is extremely well done and suspenseful.

The end felt like an attempt to make a simple chase movie seem profound, by throwing in some stuff about fate and unexplainable evil in the world. Did this movie really teach us anything new about that? Not really.

From friends who've read the book, I get the impression it worked much better in print, since the sheriff's thoughts about evil, etc. are interspersed throughout the text. In the movie, it was pretty much all about the chase until the very end, and the ending didn't work well IMO. Had more attention been paid to the Tommy Lee Jones character, perhaps the ending would've had more impact.

The beginning of the movie opens with Bell pontificating on the nature of evil and this world. Then we are given a chase film that has subtle commentary about the theme of the movie, which the beginning opened with, then near the middle we have another Bell talk (this time with his uncle) about the them, and again at the end.

The movie isn't a chase flick, and as the reviewer pointed out, there are hints of that in the film beyond the monologues.

Yeah, Bell's opening narration is important. It's almost like everything between that and Brolin's defeat is Bell telling us a story, and everything after that is the "present." Not really, of course, but the feeling is similar.

You know the scene where Chigurh is driving on that bridge and on the rail there is a black crow or some kind of black bird.. and I think the scene slows down and he gets his gun out and tries to shoot the bird but misses, hits the railing, and the bird flies away..

What was the meaning/symbolism behind that scene?

I was under the impression that he hit it. As far as symbolism/meaning: He has no regard for any form of life. Pretty clear imo.

lol, yeah, pretty clear indeed - he kills to kill things.

And no, I think he missed it, Rich.

Maybe he wasn't ever trying to hit it. Just to rock its world with the noise and the shaking of a bullet hitting the bridge under its feet, and see what would happen.

imo, it shows that Chigurh has a childlike wonder at other living things and how they work, how they react. Like when he shot Stephen Root and stood there for a few moments, watching him breathe.

Very good interpretation imo. This just gives me a good excuse to watch it yet again.

There was no problem with what happened to each of the characters. The problem was ending with the weird Tommy Lee Jones monologue. Through most of the movie, he's an unimportant character. Yet the ending focuses on him.

The focus seemed to be more on his type of old understanding of the world than on him specifically. It was just his character that framed the intrusion of the new and provided it context. It didn't seem to be about him so much as about everyone, with him as our stand-in.

In the book, Ed Tom's two dreams came just after his father died (maybe 40 years prior), not just after ET retired.

I think, in the film, the death of Brolin is meant to be the moment where we switch to TLJ's perspective (or "realize" that it's been his story all along, etc.) In the novel, Bell's narration and his policework is much more prominent, so it's easier to feel that connection, but I guess the Coens thought that it wasn't necessary, that latching onto Bell would be our only choice when Brolin is gone, especially since we see learn about Brolin's defeat through Jones's perspective.

Nothing more than a steven Segal movie with better actors.

Now THIS is a man who knows his movies. Please post more.