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Let's talk about "No Country for Old Men" (spoilers ahead).

Also, long-a*s post.

Kind of ashamed to admit that only recently did I watch this movie for the first time. A sin, yeah, I know. Calm down, folks.

I've watched it and I find myself in a bit of a rabbit hole now. Because I can't shake off the impression it made on me, and I can't help but feel completely enchanted by it. Not in a "oh, it's so beautiful" way. Rather "I don't know what to think and somehow I love this feeling".

A lot of people complain about the movie's slow pacing, the lack of a final showdown, and the fact that the evil man gets away with his crimes. Fair criticism, to each their own. I personally love it. Not because I'm cheering for a psychopath, but because it felt refreshing and painfully real.

The story wants you to root for Llewelyn Moss and it succeeds - he's a decent guy, competent, brave, definitely not some pathetic wimp. And it's ironic how it's actually his kindness that usually gets him in trouble. Not really taking the money, or running from the cartel. It's the one decision he made based on kindness.

Because Llewelyn decides to go back to the spot where he found the cartel members to give a dying man some water. Sounds illogical and reckless, to be honest, but it also really says something about Llewelyn. Beneath the tough, pragmatic exterior there is a human being who can't completely turn off empathy. And it's exactly what continues to haunt him throughout the story, until his demise.

Small detail, too, maybe I'm looking too deep into it - but the scene with a cartel guy asking for water, and Llewelyn going through stuff in the abandoned cars... Doesn't it look familiar? Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time (or arguably right place and right time), in the middle of a desert, expecting to find money or gold, and the single surviving man asking for water. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Then there is Anton Chigurh. Boy, did Javier Bardem do a good job. And boy, did they do him dirty with that absolutely atrocious haircut. All his other crimes pale in comparison (calm down, it's a joke).

You've heard it 1579 times already, but Anton is universally named as one of the most realistic portrayals of a psychopath. His smile never reaches his eyes, and these seem like two dark, bottomless wells. He looks unsettling and wrong, even though the actor playing him is very handsome. He's eerily resilient to pain, to the point of appearing inhuman. Because who in their right mind acts this calm with a bone sticking out of their body?

There is a certain heaviness and exhaustion to this character that I find very captivating. It was a great choice to never explain who he is and why he acts the way he does. He seems like someone unapologetically confident and convinced that he's doing precisely what he was meant to do, even if it means committing utter monstrosities. He's almost like a ghost, with no passions, no intent of his own, just an agent of fate - or so he wants to believe.

And finally there is Ed Tom Bell. An aging sheriff and - as I choose to see it - one of the titular "old men". Seeing such extreme violence happening for no reasons, or ones that seem utterly unfitting for the scale of it, he becomes convinced that he's no longer capable of doing his job. He doesn't understand people like Anton, and thus he doesn't feel that he can successfully fight them. And it's a very relatable feeling. Violence and death have been around as long as mankind. But it's almost like the more we're advancing, the more abstract it becomes. With people hurting others just because they can, completely detached emotionally and devoid of compassion. I can't blame him for feeling the way he does. But I also don't think he's entirely right. Violent, cruel people hurting others for no reason existed centuries ago. I don't think it's really about the world changing - it's about YOU failing to catch up with it. And I don't mean it as an insult - it's something very natural that most of us will face anyway.

I don't see many people mentioning this, but what I love about this movie is also the landscape. It's quiet, vast, unwelcoming, but also undeniably beautiful. Combined with the lack of soundtrack (save for a couple very subtle moments when some melody is used), it creates a truly unforgettable atmosphere.

And don't even get me started on the coin toss scene at the gas station. That poor guy's guardian angel was really working overtime. It was so tense, and it really explained Anton's personality better than any long flashback sequence ever could. He's a man with principles - very twisted ones, but he follows them rigidly. He's also paranoid, cold and predatory. He toys with his potential victim like a cat. Throughout this encounter he maintains almost aggressive eye contact, intimidating the hell out of that poor old man (also, Gene Jones - what a great performance, the scene wouldn't hit the same had someone else replaced him). And, interestingly, the shopkeeper "calling it" correctly doesn't annoy Anton. In fact, Chigurh seems quite impressed, even happy. Definitely it's not the sign of compassion, though, but something else entirely. It tells us that he indeed sees himself as an extension or tool of some higher power. The older man winning means fate doesn't want Anton to kill him. A truly messed up and strange way to reject responsibility for your own actions.

So in general, yeah, I guess liked the movie.

#neo western #coen brothers #cormac mccarthy #no country for old men #josh brolin #javier bardem #tommy lee jones #llewelyn moss #anton chigurh #ed tom Jones #movies #the good the bad and the ugly #gene Jones

The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023)

Dir. Francis Gallupi

anyone working in person in customer service has seen 2 or 3 things as gross as this if not grosser

#Cyst #2020 #Keturah Brown #Gene Jones

The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023) Francis Galluppi

May 18th 2024

#the last stop in yuma county #2023 #francis galluppi #jim cummings #jocelin donahue #richard brake #nicholas logan #faizon love #sierra mccormick #connor paolo #michael abbott jr.#barbara crampton #ryan masson #gene jones #robin bartlett #jon proudstar #sam huntington #alexandra essoe

The Last Stop in Yuma County

Movies watched in 2025

The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023, USA)

Director & Writer: Francis Galluppi

Mini-review:

I had heard some pretty great things about this film (Sam Raimi loved it so much that he hired the director to helm a future Evil Dead movie!), and I can see why. The setup is simple but well executed; just when you think all the cards have been played out, Galluppi surprises you with something else, a strategy that he keeps up until the very end. The cast also has no weak links, which is basically essential for this type of play-like movie. I don't really have much more to say, since The Last Stop in Yuma County is rather short, but just know that I enjoyed it.