122 minutes, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy

No Country for Old Men has been one of my favorite movies since I viewed it five years ago. When I saw it in the discount bin at the 7-11 I had to view it again, as I recalled how chilling the film was to most of those seeing it. If you speak with most viewers of this film they will sight excellent writing and acting, and particularly the cold character of Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem.

The film is somewhat narrated by an aging sheriff [played by Tommy Lee Jones] of a Texas border county as the cross-border drug trade heats up to insane levels of violence in 1980. The tale follows a case of drug money as the hunter [played by Josh Brolin] who found it is pursued by gangland assassins, including Chigurh. Chigurh is an ice cold psychopathic killer who sees every person as a tool. The rest of his behavior is generally read as being chillingly quirky or sadistic but lacking any moral significance.

On two occasions Anton Chigurh has decided to kill an innocent character—many of whom come to litter the rural landscape—and the victim, sensing doom and having realized this, makes an objection. Chigurh pulls out a coin and announces that he will toss it and that the person must call it. This is the subtext of the tale and the key to this character, who sees himself as being carried along on a random road of fate, and maintains his balance by this artifice, which is an aspect of his adherence to a code of honor, which fighting men will tell you is the key to consistent effectiveness in combat.

When one character calls the coin and is spared by the toss of ‘heads’ Anton gives him the coin and says, “Don’t put it in your pocket with the others or it will become just another coin.”

Most viewers, like most of the characters, see this is frightening and bizarre but of no significance. Consider that Anton reads the dates of the coins to draw an inkling of his fate, and uses coins for various small tasks, by plucking them from his pocket in the time of need, and it becomes clear that Anton identifies with the coin, who has a birth date, and is then carried about the world to an uncertain fate by the course of events over which he has no influence, but to which he serves a purpose. He can though, maintain his singular nature and hope to land ‘heads up’ when it is called.

Chigurh is not just the villain to this tale, but its heart. Even as the last American frontier is turned into nothing but a money making drug smuggling matrix of betrayal and ruthless expediency, he holds to his sense of honor. As the sheriff tries to fathom the violent spiral of the world with searching terms such as ‘Signs and wonders’ and ‘a man would have to put his soul at hazard’ most of the supporting cast simply stand bemused at Chigurh’s actions with such statements as ‘That don’t make no sense’ and ‘You don’t have to do this’.

The sheriff is counseled by a retired colleague who says, about the course of events, ‘It ain’t all waitin’ on you. That’s vanity,’ making Chigurh’s point that one can only hope to be singular and honorable in the face of Fate.

The telling point of Chigurh is not his unnaturally cool lethality, but that he sees the world and himself clearly and stays centered and not deluded through recourse to honor. At some point one of the characters—I think the sheriff—mentions ‘principals that transcend’, and to me, that is what this grasping story is about. The most fascinating aspect about Anton Chigurh is not that he is the dark lethal shadow that stalks this brutally materialistic world of ruthless drug gangs, but that he does so as an ageless and honorable—though evil—villain. He literally makes no sense to the other characters and cannot be fathomed by most viewers, because he adheres to a code of honor to what extends to an impractical degree. The man hunter supreme—who will kill with a coin or even the handcuffs that shackle him—will hazard his life in order to preserve that principal of honor that buoys his soul.

I see Anton Chigurh, the honorably evil killer that stalks No Country for Old Men, as an apocalyptic figure; a primal avenger that brings spiritual energy to a world that has devolved to the purely material. Anton Chigurh is the specter that will rise to devour the Material Man when his world of things fails him holistically, and He is left with nothing to guide Him but the rudder of passively expedient security that is the beating heart of His purely material feminized world.

If the Manhattan-D.C.-Los Angeles axis fails the faithful, watch this movie in between the rolling blackouts, as it is a griping illustration of the timeless values that bring success to those who strive against foes who live in the purely material world.