# No Country for Old Men (film)

No Country for Old Men is a 2007 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel of the same name. Set in West Texas, the movie is about a man on the run with a suitcase full of money, and the implacable assassin pursuing him.
    Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. Written by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen.

## Sheriff Ed Tom Bell

* [opening monologue] I was Sheriff of this county when I was 25 years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman, father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time, him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time Sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough never carried one. That's the younger Jim. Gaston Borkins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the old-timers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the old-timers. Can't help but wonder how they'd have operated in these times. There was this boy I sent to the electric chair at Huntsville here awhile back, my arrest and my testimony. He killed a 14 year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been plannin' to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out, he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell, be there in about fifteen minutes. I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willin' to die to even do this job. but I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet somethin' I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say: "Okay, I'll be part of this world."

## Ellis

* All the time you spend trying to get back what's been took from you, more is going out the back door.

## Dialogue

    Anton Chigurh: What's the most you've ever lost on a coin toss?
    Proprietor: Sir?
    Chigurh: The most you ever lost on a coin toss.
    Proprietor: I don't know. I couldn't say.
    [Chigurh tosses a quarter in the air, catches it, then places it on the counter with his hand over it]
    Chigurh: Call it.
    Proprietor: Call it?
    Chigurh: [sighs] Yes.
    Proprietor: For what?
    Chigurh: Just call it.
    Proprietor: Well, we need to know what we're callin' for here.
    Chigurh: You need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair.
    Proprietor: I didn't put nothin' up.
    Chigurh: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life. You just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin?
    Proprietor: No.
    Chigurh: 1958. It's been traveling 22 years to get here, and now it's here and it's either heads or tails, and you have to say. Call it.
    Proprietor: Well look, I need to know what I stand to win.
    Chigurh: Everything.
    Proprietor: How's that?
    Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.
    Proprietor: All right. Heads, then.
    [Chigurh removes his hand]
    Chigurh: Well done! [flicks the quarter to the proprietor] Don't put it in your pocket.
    Proprietor: Sir?
    Chigurh: Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter.
    Proprietor: Well, where do you want me to put it?
    Chigurh: Anywhere. Not in your pocket, where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin, which it is.
    Deputy Wendell: This is turnin' into a hell of a mess, ain't it, Sheriff?
    Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: If it isn't, it'll do until the mess gets here.
    Carla Jean Moss: What're you goin' to do?
    Llewelyn Moss: I'm fixin' to do somethin' dumber'n hell but I'm goin' anyways. If I don't come back, tell Mother I love her.
    Carla Jean: Your mother's dead, Llewelyn.
    Llewelyn: Well then, I'll tell her myself.
    Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: Aw, now that's aggravatin'.
    Deputy Wendell: Sheriff?
    Bell: [Gestures to a bottle of milk on the coffee table] Still sweatin'.
    Wendell: Oh, Sheriff! We just missed him! We gotta circulate this, on radio!
    Bell: Alright. Then what do we circulate? Lookin' for a man who's recently drunk milk?
    Wendell: Oh, Sheriff, that's aggravatin'.
    Bell: I'm ahead of you, there.
    Wendell: You think this boy Moss has got any notion of the sorts of sons of bitches that're on him?
    Bell: I don't know, he ought to. He's seen the same things I've seen, and it's certainly made an impression on me.
    Man Who Hires Wells: You know Anton Chigurh by sight. Is that correct?
    Carson Wells: Yes, sir. I know him every which way.
    Man Who Hires Wells: When did you last see him?
    Wells: Uh, November 28th of last year.
    [Wells moves to sit down in a nearby chair]
    Man Who Hires Wells: You seem pretty sure of the date. Did I ask you to sit?
    Wells: [sitting down] No sir, but you struck me as a man who wouldn't want to waste a chair.
    Man Who Hires Wells: How well do you know Chigurh?
    Carson Wells: Well enough.
    Man Who Hires Wells: That's not an answer.
    Wells: What do you want to know?
    Man Who Hires Wells: I'd just like to know your opinion of him in general. Just how dangerous is he?
    Wells: Compared to what, bubonic plague? He's bad enough you called me. He's a psychopathic killer, but so what? There's plenty of 'em around.
    Man Who Hires Wells: He killed three men in a motel in Del Rio yesterday, and two others at that colossal goatfuck out in the desert.
    Wells: We can stop that.
    Man Who Hires Wells: You seem pretty sure of yourself. You've led something of a charmed life, haven't you, Mr. Wells?
    Wells: In all honesty, I can't say that charm has had a whole lot to do with it.
    Carson Wells: You know, I, uh, counted the floors of this building from the street.
    Man Who Hires Wells: And?
    Wells: Well, there's one missing.
    Man Who Hires Wells: We'll look into it.
    [Wells is visiting Moss in the hospital]
    Carson Wells: Buenos días. I'm guessing this isn't the future you had planned for yourself when you first clapped eyes on that money. Don't worry. I'm not the man who's after you.
    Llewelyn Moss: I know that. I've seen him.
    Wells: You've seen him, and you're not dead?
    Moss: What's this guy supposed to be, the ultimate badass?
    Wells: No, I wouldn't describe him as that.
    Moss: How would you describe him?
    Wells: I guess I would say he doesn't have a sense of humor.
    [Anton has a gun pointed at Wells]
    Carson Wells: You don't have to do this. I'm a day trader. I could just go home.
    Anton Chigurh: You could?
    Wells: I could make it worth your while. I could take you to an ATM with 14 grand in it, and everyone just walks away.
    Chigurh: [amused] An ATM.
    Wells: I know where the satchel is.
    Chigurh: If you knew, you would have it with you.
    Wells: I can find it from the riverbank. I know where it is.
    Chigurh: I know something better. I know where it's going to be.
    Wells: Where's that?
    Chigurh: It will be brought to me and placed at my feet.
    Wells: You don't know to a certainty. Twenty minutes, it could be here.
    Chigurh: I do know to a certainty, and you know what's going to happen now, Carson. You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it.
    Wells: You go to hell.
    Chigurh: All right. Let me ask you something. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
    Wells: Do you have any idea how crazy you are?
    Chigurh: You mean the nature of this conversation?
    Wells: I mean the nature of you. You...You can have the money, Anton. [The phone rings. Wells looks at it briefly before looking back to Chigurh, who shoots him dead]
    Llewelyn Moss: Hello?
    Anton Chigurh: Yes?
    Moss: Is, uh, Carson Wells there?
    Chigurh: [glances at Wells' corpse] Not in the sense that you mean. You need to come and see me.
    Moss: Who is this?
    Chigurh: You know who it is.
    Moss: [sighs] Yeah, I know who it is.
    Chigurh: You need to talk to me.
    Moss: I don't need to talk to you.
    Chigurh: I think you do. Do you know where I'm going?
    Moss: Why would I care where you're going?
    Chigurh: I know where you are.
    Moss: Yeah? Where am I?
    Chigurh: You're in the hospital across the river. But that's not where I'm going. Do you know where I'm going?
    Moss: [quietly] Yeah, I know where you're going. She's not gonna be there.
    Chigurh: It won't make a difference if she's there.
    Moss: So what are you going up there for?
    Chigurh: You know how this is going to turn out, don't you?
    Moss: No. Do you?
    Chigurh: I think you do, so this is what I'll offer: you bring me the money and I'll let her go. Otherwise she's accountable, the same as you. That's the best deal you're going to get. I won't tell you you can save yourself, because you can't.
    Moss: Yeah, I'm goin' to bring you somethin', all right. I've decided to make you a special project of mine. You ain't goin to have to look for me at all.
    Ellis: Loretta tells me you're quittin'. How come you're doin' that?
    Ed Tom Bell: I don't know. I feel overmatched. I always figured when I got older, God would sort of come into my life in some way, and He didn't. And I don't blame Him. If I was Him, I'd have the same opinion of me that He does.
    Ellis: You don't know what He thinks.
    Ellis: I sent Uncle Max's thumb buster and badge over to the Rangers, to put in their museum. Daddy ever tell you how Uncle Max come to his reward? [Ed Tom shakes his head] Gunned down on his own porch, over in Hudspeth County. Seven or eight of 'em come up there, wantin' this and wantin' that. Uncle Max went back in the house to get the shotgun, and well, they was ahead of him. Shot him in his doorway. Aunt Ella come out, to try and stop the bleedin', and Uncle Max all the while tryin' to get that shotgun. They just sat there on their horses, watchin' him die. After a while, one of 'em said somethin' in Indian, and they turned and left out. Uncle Max knew the score, even if Aunt Ella didn't. Shot through the left lung. And that was that, as they say.
    Ed Tom Bell: When'd he die?
    Ellis: Nineteen-zero and, uh, nine?
    Bell: No, was it right away, or in the night, or when was it?
    Ellis: I believe it was that night. She buried him the next mornin', diggin' in that hard old caliche. What you got, ain't nothin' new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's comin'. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity.
    [Carla Jean Moss enters her mother's house, finding Anton Chigurh sitting in a chair in her mother's room]
    Carla Jean Moss: I knew this wasn't done with.
    Anton Chigurh: No.
    Carla Jean: I ain't got the money. What little I had is long gone and there's bills a-plenty to pay yet. I buried my mother today. I ain't paid for that neither.
    Chigurh: I wouldn't worry about it.
    Carla Jean: I need to sit down. You got no cause to hurt me.
    Chigurh: No, but I gave my word.
    Carla Jean: You gave your word?
    Chigurh: To your husband.
    Carla Jean: That don't make sense. You gave your word to my husband to kill me?
    Chigurh: Your husband had the opportunity to save you. Instead, he used you to try to save himself.
    Carla Jean: Not like that. Not like you say. You don't have to do this.
    Chigurh: People always say the same thing.
    Carla Jean: What do they say?
    Chigurh: They say, "You don't have to do this."
    Carla Jean: You don't.
    Chigurh: [sighs] Okay. [tosses a coin] This is the best I can do. Call it.
    Carla Jean: I knowed you was crazy when I saw you sittin' there. I knowed exactly what was in store for me.
    Chigurh: Call it.
    Carla Jean: No, I ain't gonna call it.
    Chigurh: Call it.
    Carla Jean: The coin don't have no say! It's just you!
    Chigurh: Well, I got here the same way the coin did.
    Loretta Bell: How'd you sleep?
    Ed Tom Bell: I don't know. Had dreams.
    Loretta: Well, you got time for 'em now. Anything interesting?
    Ed Tom: Well, they always is to the party concerned.
    Loretta: Ed Tom, I'll be polite.
    Ed Tom: All right then. Two of 'em. Both had my father in 'em. It's peculiar. I'm older now than he ever was by twenty years. So, in a sense, he's the younger man. Anyway, the first one I don't remember too well but, it was about meetin' him in town somewheres and he give me some money. I think I lost it. The second one, it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin' through the mountains overnight. Goin' through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin'. Never said nothin' goin' by, just rode on past. And he had his blanket wrapped around him and his head down. When he rode past, I seen he was carryin' fire in a horn the way people used to do, and I-I could see the horn from the light inside of it - about the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin' on ahead and he was fixin' to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold. And I knew that whenever I got there, he'd be there. And then I woke up.

## Taglines

* There are no clean getaways.
* You can't stop what's coming.
* There are no laws.
* Where's the last man standing?

## Cast

* Tommy Lee Jones - Sheriff Ed Tom Bell
* Josh Brolin - Llewelyn Moss
* Javier Bardem - Anton Chigurh
* Kelly Macdonald - Carla Jean Moss
* Tess Harper - Loretta Bell
* Woody Harrelson - Carson Wells
* Stephen Root - Man Who Hires Wells
* Barry Corbin - Ellis

## External links

* Official site
* Official Canadian site
* No Country for Old Men quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* No Country for Old Men review at film.com
* No Country for Old Men at Rotten Tomatoes