character analysis of cowboy, sheriff and killer

No country for old men is a film that wants it audience to think that it follow a regular film structure when at the heart of it , it doesn't . The set up of the film and the characters follow the structure of a normal western. You have the noble and brave cowboy running a way from the almost unstoppable killer while the sheriff investigates and is on their trial, but what the film does with this concept it completely subverts the audiences expectations.

The cowboy

 The cowboy (Llewelyn Moss) is meant to be the Brave out law with genial morals and who is quite skilled. Moss fines a large amount of money left over from a shoot out with a group of two revile drug cartels. He finds himself on the run from this killer. He uses the money he has to do his best to stay a head of the killer. This character is presented as the protagonist ,this is because of his dislodge. He's confident,witty and he has almost all of the funny one liners in the whole film. The killer finally finds moss  and they confront each other and they both were able to get a shot of each other. Moss escapes him a barely. Hes bleeding out and while watching this you think that he'll    die even though you can see him bleeding out ,limping and struggling to stay conscious because he is the main character that we've been following and rooting for .Later on the film takes a complete left turn by killing Moss off screen. This completely subverts the audience expectations. This character we've been following for the whole film is just killed off screen  and not even by the main antagonist but by the Mexicans. This is a huge risk done by the directors but it adds a sense of realness to film and shows how sometimes the good guys don't always win.

The Killer

The killer (Anton Chigurh) is shown to be a very mysterious character. The only things we know about this character  is that he is very organised and very easily annoyed .He will not hesitate to kill anyone and is also to be really intelligent. This pretty much all we ever find out about this character and with out getting a backstory, your not able to sympathise with him and it creates a disconnect with him and the audience. He is just a pure villein with no redeeming quality and no way to see things from his point of view , he is just evil. He kills moss but I don't believe that that makes him the winner at the end . At the end of the film hes gets in a car crash and is injured and he just walks a way. I think this shows how the thing hat he won in this fight s that he gets away with his life barely.



The Sheriff

The Sheriff (Ed Tom Bell) is shown to be very capable but its almost like he struggle to keep up with the changing world . When Moss died you realises that the real protagonist of the film is actually Bell. Sheriff bell is meant to be one of the old men mentioned in the title and how this world is constantly changing and Bell is struggling to keep up with this unorthodox crime. This is No country for old men only the youth which is why he eventually ends up retiring in the end because he doesn't understand this crazy world.