There's a lesson to be had in 'No Country,' friendo
Well, besides not stealing drug dealers' hard-earned cash, of course.
I write at Pajamas Media today about the unambiguous, black-and-white good and evil seen in Javier Bardem's infamous character Anton Chigurh, and how important it is to see that unfold onscreen when we face similar enemies -- maybe not armed with cattle guns and page-boy hair -- in real life.
"...In one of my favorite films, Pulp Fiction, the hitman duo of John Travolta as Vincent Vega and Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield are arguably the film’s most likable characters — and characters whose fates are molded by the concept of redemption. After believing that God stopped a hail of short-range bullets from striking either he or Vincent while out on a job, Jules decides to give up the hitman life and go straight. He then puts this talk into action by deciding to spare a pair of restaurant robbers in his 'transitional period.' Vincent mocks Jules’ conviction about divine intervention and his decision to give up contract killing. The moral of the story? Vincent is killed in a most inglorious way. Jules lives.
But Chigurh is a character who would have unceremoniously killed Pulp’s Pumpkin and Honeybunny robbers, along with the blustering restaurant manager and maybe the waitstaff, then would have enjoyed the rest of Vincent’s bacon before hitting the road. (Just nobody ask him where he’s headed, friendo.)
You leave the theater after No Country realizing the central message, intended or not: We may spend so much time trying to figure why people are bad that we fail to accept that some people are just bad — and should be dealt with accordingly. Like Ed Tom Bell wakes up from his dream, we, too, can wake from a false sense of security, difficult as it may be to understand the changing world around us..."
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