Anyone prefer first half to the second?

Kind of like Full Metal Jacket, it’s a film of two halves.

I remember watching this in theaters and being blown away by the “cat and mouse” thriller angle, thinking this was one of the best suspense films I’d ever seen. Definitely had shades of The Fugitive mixed with the gritty action of The Wild Bunch. However, I could feel the tension in the film deflate once Llewelyn winds up dead and we follow the morose Sheriff Bell character around as he laments his wasted life. I get what they were going for with the subversion of tropes and analysis of spiritual loss and mortality, but I kind of wished they’d kept up the chase angle the whole way through.

Imagine if during Silence of the Lambs Clarice Starling is murdered and we had to follow Jack Crawford as he loses Buffalo Bill and sits all depressed at his desk.