Analysis of the film and connections between John and Jim
It's pretty clear symbolically that the boundary between John Ryder and Jim Halsey as characters is smudged. Onscreen, they're objectively separate, but certain scenes, moments and plot points hint at a deeper connection in the film's subtext.
John Ryder repeatedly displays basically supernatural powers: wiping out a police station full of armed cops, appearing and disappearing from nowhere, bringing down a helicopter with one bullet from a pistol, killing everyone in a heavily armed police escort vehicle. Characters make decisions that would be nonsensical in a logical, literal film.
The desert is a significant landscape: a flat stage for character and psychological drama to be played out on ("figures in a landscape"). John is never presented as a realistic murderer- he's something symbolic, supernatural.
In rough chronological order:
-In the beginning of the movie, John makes Jim say "I want to die", with the often pointed-out implication that John also wants to die on some level. This, and the two sharing that line of dialogue (though Jim rejects completing it), links the characters immediately. See the coin scene for further elaboration on this particular connection.
-Jim is literally always in enclosed spaces with John. The car, the gas station, the diner booth, the truck, the police station. The only time he's "outside" is in the final confrontation, the scene with the little girl, or when he's driving in a car alongside Jim- much shorter scenes. This may sound like a weird observation to make but the film is set in such a vast, empty and very open landscape that crowding the two together makes a distinct subconscious impression.
-The police mistake Jim for John, which is strange considering the two look very different. They also find John's knife in his pants pockets, despite there not being any point in the film where John is shown putting it there.
-Throughout the movie, the police and other outsiders consistently believe Jim is John. While presented as John framing Jim in-story, it's clear more is going on under the surface. It's interesting that this identity confusion is one of the main plot points of the film.
-As Jim is in the back of the Ranger car he hijacked, John's black truck emerges from behind his head (notably) and John shoots the two officers in front with a nearly identical gun to the one that Jim is holding. There is a quick cut between Jim screaming and John lowering his gun where the two are in the same position and space in the frame.
-The scene where John puts coins on Jim's eyes is very interesting. John licks both coins, but wets the second on Jim's lips. Due to the death symbolism of the coins, this implies their deaths will be somehow connected. It could also perhaps suggest the two are "two sides of the same coin". Throughout the film, John is obsessed with either killing or being killed by Jim. Perhaps there's not really a difference between the two.
-Another interpretation of that scene is that Jim is dead, and is trapped in some sort of purgatory with the supernatural Ryder. The great thing about this film is that it lends itself easily to many different interpretations without being overly vague with its symbolism. It's a very tricky balance to have.
-Jim contemplates suicide during the film, holding a gun to his head (that he didn't know was unloaded). John, who later gives him bullets for this gun, obviously has a death wish during the film as well. In my opinion, John represents violent and suicidal urges Jim is grappling with.
-Jim gets progressively less innocent throughout the film, a clear sign of John's growing influence over him. He starts off as a sweet kid who's naive enough to pick up a very shady-looking hitchhiker, and develops into somebody who hijacks cars, shoots at cops and blows his enemy away with a shotgun.
-John gets into bed with Nash while Jim is in the shower, in the same spot Jim was. She also mistakes him for Jim at first.
-This isn't a "connection" per se but it took me a bit to understand the meaning of the scene in the truck: John demands Jim shoot him in the face and kill him, knowing full well that his death will be the death of Nash. He's trying to rile up Jim to the point where his vengeance against John outweighs Nash's life- thus marking the final step in transforming Jim into a killer. He doesn't do it, and John is really disappointed.
-John is background checked by the police and found to have no identification, recorded history or papers. The same thing happened when Jim was taken in by the police earlier in the film- another strange connection.
-In the police station, the investigator asks John his name. Jim, not John, answers with "John Ryder" (and is heard by John despite being through soundproof glass). Funnily enough, the original script specifies that John is looking at his reflection in the two-way mirror in this moment, and through his reflection, is looking at Jim.
-There is a brief scene when John is in the armored vehicle where John and Jim are both eyeing the firearms of the police officers in their respective transport vehicles. They later both grab them.
-Right before Jim kills John, John throws his shackles between them and smiles. This is a very obvious visual metaphor that the two are "linked"- chained together.
-Jim kills John with the shotgun John was using moments earlier. The death means little other than as a cumulation of John's effect on Jim. It's not framed as justice or satisfying revenge or even as something Jim necessarily "wants" to do (he just "has" to). It's exactly what John wants.
-After John is shot by Jim for the final time, his body simply disappears into the sand, one final hint at his unreality.
-The last scene of the film is Jim leaning against a car and lighting a cigarette... which along with being a bookend is also basically what John did during the film's beginning. In this interpretation, this could represent the merging of the two characters: Jim has killed John, doing exactly what he wanted, and has now subsumed him and taken his place. Of course, this can also interpreted in the sexual way: the final shotgun fight representing male-male intercourse (notice how sweetly Jim caresses John's head with the gun barrel?) and the cigarette being the accessory to post-coital glow.
-On that note, the gay analysis of this film is quite popular. I can see why and I consider it a key part of the movie's appeal. It comes largely from Rutger Hauer's acting and is partially why his performance in the movie is so brilliant.
-On one last note, Rutger Hauer more or less obliquely confirms the theory in this post in his video logs (viewable on the filmfactoryshorts Youtube channel) about the film; twice he refers to Ryder breaking out of his cell and killing a bunch of cops while in prison (Jim Halsey is actually the one imprisoned at this point), and refers to him "not remembering" this and having an "alter ego" (this isn't a misremembering of Ryder breaking out of the bus at the end, he mentions that scene too).