"Well this is just a deal gone wrong, isn't it?"

Rating: 8/10 (28 November 2007)

Sometimes I'll work an overnight graveyard shift (like last night), and then stay up the next day making it about twenty hours straight without sleep. I'll usually catch a second wind around two o'clock in the afternoon, so figured that would be perfect to see this film with a 2:20 start time. Now I know I was fully awake for the entire movie, but when it ended, I had to question myself as to what I'd missed. With this movie's shooting star flight path to #23 on the IMDb as I write this, I thought for sure that something must have eluded me or gone completely over my head. And then I heard the comment from another theater viewer as the screen went dark - "Is it over?" At least I had company.
But here's the thing. I can't really disagree with a lot of the reviewers on this board gushing the praises of this picture. The performances were riveting, the tension was unnerving, and there were scenes that come out of nowhere to knock you clear out of your seat. The character of Anton Chigurh is so unrelentingly evil that he comes off like an Earth based version of the Terminator. However when all is said and done, the randomness of the final act that brings the story to a close (other than Tommy Lee Jones' dream narration), leaves the fate of Chigurh entirely unresolved. OK, so maybe real life is like that sometimes, but something MUST have happened to Chigurh after he walked away with the bone sticking out of his arm. But in this case, it's just not interesting to consider the possible alternate endings when the REAL film doesn't even give you just one.
It's too bad too, because I'm a Coen Brothers fan from "Fargo", "The Big Lebowski", "O Brother Where Art Thou", and the brilliant "Miller's Crossing". They've shown themselves to be competent writers and story tellers and each of their films grab you and they don't let go until the end. This one let's you go, and you wind up saying 'I'm not ready yet'.
For what it's worth, I like to think that Llewelyn's wife won the coin toss.