Problems with the characters, problems with the ending

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2007)

I enjoyed watching this film. I enjoyed the realism and the unique characters of Lewellyn and Chigurh. But I was left rather angry by the way it ended.
Why, after following the moves of the hunter and prey, do we get gypped out of seeing the denouement? Chigurh wins but we don't see it. And what about those other guys jumping into the truck? Why, after watching Lewellyn's wife face the killer, do we not get to see what he does? I'd have settled for a gunshot. No. After hearing her unique approach to the killers "coin toss" gambit, we see him walk out without a sound from the house. Did the gambit work? OK, I have to guess, so I guess, no, it didn't. But why, after all the violence so far, do I have to guess on this one? Is it because the movie's almost over? That makes no sense.
How is it that the hunter gets rammed by another vehicle at this particular time? Random chance? What are the odds? Films don't have events in them that are random. So what's the message? Just because it's a shock and I didn't expect it doesn't make it good storytelling. Also, why no "portrait" of the other driver? We had scores of other portraits so why no portrait here? How did that driver come to be going so fast? Drugs? Rage? What? If it doesn't matter than why do the other events matter?
Speaking of portraits what purpose does Sheriff Tommy Lee Jones serve? I kept thinking this seasoned old lawman was going to enter the scene at some point but he is terminally peripheral. He doesn't catch anyone. He doesn't even get a description of the killer from the trailer park superintendent because he never interviews her. He's just Falstaff in a Shakespeare play. Another blunder of his seems to be that he was in the same room with the killer and didn't know it (there in that last motel). All he had to do was turn on the rest of the lights. Or did I miss something? (Maybe this is a Patricia Highsmith type story where the villain gets away with it. I hate those kinds of stories.)
How does the Woody Harrelson character add to the film? I get it that his presence fleshes out the ruthlessness of the killer and also the craftiness but that's somewhat undone by the easiness with which he's done away with. Shouldn't he have made his stand on the hotel stairs? Once inside the room he was a goner.
And why, after being so wily up to the last reel, does Lewellyn show his cards to his wife knowing that the killer already has included her in the mix? And why does he not hide the money in a better spot having already used the air vent ploy? If nothing else, it guarantee's his life for a while if he doesn't have the money on him.
Finally, I echo other reviewers at the low end who ask how none of this came to be followed by regular law officials? The killer leaves bodies behind like bread crumbs and no one is assigned to investigate? That's pretty hard to swallow.
Nine years later I feel like changing one point. I understand Chigurh enough now to know he did kill Lewellen's wife. Her only chance, illogical as it was, was to correctly guess the flip of the coin. She didn't so he killed her. Is it a better movie that the Coen's left out the actual scene or sound of her execution? Not to me but I would entertain an opposite point of view. The car crash right after still makes no sense to the story. But now I'm anxious to read the novel from which this all came.