Re-watched this recently, and I didn't get his motive here. They presumably were some sort of management on one side of the deal that went bad. As he met them there and they provided some information to him before he went looking for LLewelyn, they were on the same side. And Chigurh wasn't yet offended the organization would send a (to him) redundant person like Woody Harrelson's character. So why did he kill them?
shareHe explains it to the accountant after he takes out the man who hired Carson as well as himself.
“He gave the Mexicans a receiver”
“He feels, he felt, that the more people looking…”
“That’s foolish, you pick the one right tool.”
The same applies to those two dudes that he met up with to investigate the shootout. They were a nuisance to Chigurh and would only complicate his process of retrieving the money.
I remember that conversation, but I never felt like they were the equivalent of him the way Woody Harrelson's character was. They didn't seem to be at all what he was, as far as job skills. Just part of the organization that hired him.
Say Chigurh goes on to promptly retrieve the money to then return to the organization. How does he justify to them that he killed those guys, who seemed to be just liaisons taking him to the scene where he would begin tracking from?
As Carson states, he’s a psychopathic killer.
In the novel he returns the money to the top dude, after shotgunning that mafioso businessman, maybe CIA fence, in the throat, and everything else, he still returns the money.
Because he was nuts
shareYeah, that's as good an answer as any. I love the movie and it doesn't lessen my enjoyment, but he does take some strange actions that don't really seem consistent. Like the scene with the gas station worker who he makes flip for his life. You'd think someone in Chigurh's line of work would find it important NOT to draw extra attention to himself, but that whole conversation and then leaving the guy doesn't seem smart. He does show a practical sense later when trying to get information from the woman at the trailer park office. It seems he's about to kill her to get what he wants, but then changes course and leaves when he hears a noise indicating there is someone else there.
Back to the killing of the two guys I asked about - this is probably what caused the organization to send Woody Harrelson's character in the first place. It was likely those killings that made them realize they had a loose cannon out there on the trail.
“It was likely those killings that made them realize they had a loose cannon out there on the trail”
That’s what I have always thought, also.
Chigurh’s character isn’t supposed to fit any rhyme or reason, he’s an agent of chaos who serves the will and principle of what he deems worthwhile and nothing else. This is one of the primary themes of the novel/film, why the sheriff wants to retire, he no longer has the grit to face a world (as a lawman anyways) that has people like Chigurh operating in it.
No country for old men, get it, it’s a metaphor for what we’re willing to face as well as what we’re not.
Chigurh’s character doesn’t make a bit of sense and it scares the shit out of the sheriff to the point that he’s basically waving a white flag and throwing in the towel.
Hell for the longest time, I wanted to know how he was tracking Luellen Moss even when Moss found the tracking device and tossed it??
shareBecause he had no intention of returning the money to its owners, this was when Chiguhr went rogue
shareRead the novel of what the film is based, which is almost line for line, Chigurh returns the money to the crime syndicate or CIA or whomever was orchestrating the drug deal.
This was the only detail that I can think of that was left out of the film.
He was hired by the man in the office to return the money, but killed him. It’s ambiguous who he’s returning the money to in the novel, could be an entirely different organization
shareIt’s implied that whomever he returns the money too is operating within the same vein as the man who hired him, that dude’s boss or perhaps boss’.
shareI read somewhere that chigurh was buying his way into the ‘inner circle’ somewhere, so it’s possible he wanted to circumvent the man in the office by going over his head (in effect, replace him after killing him)
shareIt’s possible of course but it’s not based on anything within the novel.
Chigurh is this uncontrollable force of nature and yet he still returns the money.
He made a deal and he honors that deal, even if he murdered half the people involved in making the deal happen in the first place.
In the end his character is pretty much an enigma.
Well if he’s bringing the money to an entirely different entity, it certainly stands to reason that he’s returning the money in order to benefit himself. Logically, it means that he’s trying to buy his way into something. This is all based on the novel.
shareThat’s one point of view, I just don’t think Chigurh cares about money, or moving up, at least not in any conventional sense, he just is what he is and does what he does. Remember when Carson offers to bring the money to him,
“…in twenty minutes it could be right here,” and he refuses that offer just so he can take pleasure in watching Carson suffer before he murders him.
I don’t know, whatever Chigurh is, he seems to be apart from everyone else in the novel/film.
Hmm good point, he’s kind of a blank slate and someone can read into hims various interpretations. I thought he didn’t take up Welles’ offer since he didn’t believe Welles knew where the satchel was anyway.
shareHe implies that he doesn’t believe him but I think Carson convinces him otherwise when he repeats “I know where the satchel is, you can find it from the riverbank.”
But none of it matters at this point because Chigurh is convinced that Moss will bring the money to him to save his wife, which he doesn’t and is what ultimately causes Chigurh to get a taste of his own medicine when a car runs a stop sign shortly after he murders Moss’s wife, which nearly kills him.
I like that moment. The movie leaves things slightly open to interpretation regarding Chigur’s fate. He has a compound fracture which is going to be almost impossible to fix by himself, and it’s doubtful he has a doctor on standby. Not to mention there’s probably a state-wide manhunt for him.
share