Why I think this movie is fantastic

Rating: 10/10 (6 January 2008)

Of course the acting, directing, cinematography are great. It is a Coen brothers film so you expect that. What really clinches this for me as one of their best films, is the sneaky way that they use Jones as Sheriff Bell. He bookends the movie and he has a lot of screen time, but the Coens deliberately keep him out of what you would normally consider the main plot by the film. The movie is about Sheriff Bell and his self identity based on his crooked actions and the values he wears like a cheep mask. Just how does he merge those two aspects into a coherent view of his own self? The Coens do a good job in making this movie seem like a tense violent drama when in fact, it is a character study (Sheriff Bell). How many movies do you see that don't even include the main character/protagonist in the action that surrounds the main plot arc? The main plot arc in this film is fine, but nothing special. It has elements of Blood Simple and a number of non-Coen shoot-em-ups. As peripheral as the Anton vs. Llewelyn stuff is to the main goals of the movie, it is the part that the casual movie-goer is going to eat up.
Since I haven't seen a lot of critics mentioning the critical "evil" side of Sheriff Bell, let me clarify my P.O.V. Sheriff Bell was involved with the drug deal and either runs (my guess) the drug running Mexican or is just middle management type in their organization. Why do I think this? *Bell sees one of his own underlings (criminal, not law enforcement) driving a pick-up truck with some dead bodies in the back and he pulls the guy over and makes him strap the bodies down better so that it isn't so obvious. *Bell constantly avoids interacting with other law enforcement involved in the case (or drug crimes in general). I can imagine that he doesn't cherish time spent with DEA agents. *Bell doesn't need to look at the crime scenes because A) in some cases, he knew the details of the crime before it happened and B) he knows full well that if a crime is committed by the Mexican drug ring, he damn sure isn't going to find and capture the guilty parties. *As soon as Carla Jean tells Bell where her husband is, Bell has his Mexican drug goons wack him. Bell of course shows up just as they leave (with the hope that he can retrieve the $$ before the cops have a chance to make it to the scene of the crime). *Bell chooses to retire because he knows that Anton will track him down and kill him because he was part of that whole drug operation gone wrong. He kinda hopes that going low profile will help him, but you can see the anxiety, desperation, and fatalism in Bell as the movie closes.
What is quite nice is that the ending leaves us hanging from a number of different perspectives. (The Llewelyn/Anton thing gets wrapped up, but that was just a distraction from the real issue of Bell's inner demons anyway.) We don't know if Anton will actually come after Bell because we don't know if he will recover from his accident. We do know that if he does recover, that Bell will die (Bell is clearly knows he is out gunned). We don't know, however, if Bell will ever get his old morality back (at what age was he when last he had it?). If Anton dies of his car wreck wounds, will Bell eventually come out of retirement and return to the drug business? Will he live a life of quite desperation, always wondering if a bloody death is around the corner? Will he accept the fact that he deserves the death that Anton would bring him and meet his end with peace in his heart? Will he take steps to save his wife from dying by Anton's hands? (He could only do that by admitting to her what part he has really been playing in local crime for the past 30 years though.)
I rank this 10/10 because of subterfuge. The Coens created a character study that very cleverly pretends to be a tense crime drama. Just like Sheriff bell pretends to be a folksy, down-to-earth, family values kind of guy when in fact he is an altogether different kind of beast.