9/28/16 Jeremy Dericks

Yesterday in class we finished watching the film No Country for Old Men.  We left class the previous day after seeing that Llewelyn Moss had been shot and killed.  This came as a shock to all of us, and it was very clear that mostly everyone was disappointed.  The disappointment continued after we watched how the movie ended.  The film was action packed and kept a tight grip on the audiences attention right up until the final scene.  In the final scene, the Sheriff was sitting at the table with his wife telling him about his dream and the movie cuts out after the Sheriff says "and then I woke up."  Even though it may be extremely disappointing to end such a suspenseful movie in that way, I can admit that I see the point.  The point is that the directors did not want to follow status quo and simply have the good guy be a winner and the bad guy be a loser.  In the world of Mexican American drug trade, the good guys rarely win--unfortunately.  In reality, the odds of some average joe stumbling onto the scene of a drug deal gone bad and walking away with two million dollars and getting away with it highly unlikely.  The directors did a great job of holding on to the viewers attention throughout the film through the use of Chigurh's persistence.  If Chigurh were to simply give up and let Llewelyn walk away with the money, then the directors would not have succeeded.  Yes, some people might have been happier with the ending but it is not always the ending that defines the quality of any work.  Even though it is disappointing, it is the disappointment that moves the viewers to talk about it with others.  Ending this movie with Chigurh being defeated and Llewelyn being successful would only be predictable and would result in the entire film being just like so many others.