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1[[quoteright:258:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cormac_mccarthy_nocountryforoldmen.jpg]]
2
3->''"What you got ain't nothin' new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waitin' on you. That's vanity."''
4-->-- '''Ellis'''
5
6''No Country for Old Men'' is a 2005 neo-Western thriller novel by Creator/CormacMcCarthy, a grizzled old man who refuses to discuss his books beyond their often disturbing content.
7
8The place is West Texas; the year, 1980. When rugged Vietnam veteran Llewelyn Moss finds the horrific aftermath of a botched drug deal and takes a suitcase filled with money, he sets in motion a spiral of violence beyond his control or comprehension. A cynical old sheriff, Ed Tom Bell, is determined to prove that there's still a place for justice in an otherwise unfair and cruel world as he sets out to find Moss and protect him from the owners of the money.
9
10But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the men behind the deal have sent ruthless hitman Anton Chigurh to retrieve the briefcase. Chigurh is a man willing to do ''[[TheUnfettered absolutely anything]]'' -- to "[[{{Ubermensch}} follow a supreme act of will]]," [[BlueAndOrangeMorality as he puts it]] -- in order to achieve his aims... and it's no longer just the money he's after.
11
12The book would be adapted into [[Film/NoCountryForOldMen a film]] in 2007, written and directed by Creator/TheCoenBrothers.
13----
14!!Provides examples of:
15
16[[foldercontrol]]
17
18[[folder:A-G]]
19* TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: The book is set in the 1980s but was released in 2005.
20* TheEighties: Set in 1980.
21* AnAesop: Monstrous evil like Chigurh has always existed, and thinking previous times were better or more moral is vanity. Despite all of this, there are always people who will [[ArcWords carry the fire]].
22* ActionSurvivor: Llewelyn Moss. [[spoiler:Initially. Not so much by the end.]]
23* AgeGapRomance:
24** Moss is 36, and his wife is 19. They met when she was 16.
25** Bell notes that his wife is younger than him, though we don't know exactly by how much. The difference is enough that he expected that she would learn from him, and he says she did in some regard, but he's learned much more from her.
26* AloneWithThePsycho: Most characters in the story find themselves alone and helpless with Anton Chigurh.
27* AmbiguousSituation:
28** It's never made explicit whether Chigurh killed [[spoiler:the accountant]].
29** Does Bell's dream symbolize hope, or despair?
30* AntiClimax: The story seemingly builds towards [[spoiler:a final showdown between Moss and Chigurh, but the cartel unceremoniously kills Moss, and the story keeps going for several more chapters]], ending without any real climax.
31* AntiHero: Moss is probably a NominalHero, and Bell gradually goes into KnightInSourArmor.
32* AnyoneCanDie: [[spoiler:Come the finale, the only major characters who haven't died are Ed Tom Bell and Chigurh.]]
33* ArbitraryGunPower: In RealLife, a cattle-gun would barely be able to ''dent'' a door-lock, much less blow it completely out of the door.
34* TheAtoner: Sheriff Ed Tom Bell.
35* AxCrazy: Anton Chigurh kills a lot of people with no emotion, and has a "personal code" that mostly seems to be an excuse for killing people who so much as annoy him.
36* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:That this seems to happen more and more in the modern world is what drives Sheriff Bell over the DespairEventHorizon.]]
37* BadassBoast: "I'm going to make you ''my special project''."
38* BarBrawl: Chigurh reveals late in the book that the reason he was under arrest at the beginning of the novel is because he killed a man in a bar brawl, though it took place in the parking lot.
39* BavarianFireDrill: In a particularly disturbing example, Chigurh steals a random passerby's car by pulling him over in a police car, and manages to get him to stand still and complacent as he punches a hole into his forehead with a cattle bolt.
40* BeigeProse: Even more so than usual for [=McCarthy=], thanks to it originally being written as a screenplay.
41* BigBadEnsemble: Anton Chigurh, the Juarez Cartel, and the Matacumbe Petroleum Group are all after the money and willing to kill for it (moreso the former two, mind).
42* BigBadWannabe: The [[CorruptCorporateExecutive middle manager]] of the Matacumbe Petroleum Group. He seems to be the one who arranged to purchase $2.4 million worth of black tar heroin from Pablo Acosta's Juarez Cartel, and is responsible for bringing both Chigurh and Wells into the plot that he kicked off to begin with. It's subtly implied that this may be his first rodeo and that he's in over his head, and the company's initial foray into the drug trade ultimately gets him killed.
43* BlackAndGrayMorality: Chigurh versus Moss. Chigurh is a relentless, cold-blooded killer. Moss is impulsive and prideful, getting innocent people like his wife in danger or killed, which ultimately [[spoiler:leads to his own death.]]
44* BloodKnight: Chigurh asserts that he allowed himself to be arrested for the fatal bar fight as a challenge to himself to see if he could escape custody.
45* BoomHeadshot: Chigurh to the poor sap he carjacks. With a ''cattle gun'', of all things.
46* BriefcaseFullOfMoney: Moss takes one from the site of the botched drug deal, setting the plot in motion.
47%% * BusCrash: The entire story seems to be building towards a climactic duel between Moss and Chigurh, but in the end [[spoiler:Moss is killed off-screen by a gang of Mexican drug runners]]. A deliberate [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] of DeathIsDramatic (see above).
48* CaptainObvious: After Chigurh gets T-boned, one of the kids on the bicycles states the obvious fact that Chigurh has a bone sticking out of his arm. In fact, he states it twice. Then again, he's probably more concerned that Chigurh's showing a disturbing ''lack'' of alarm about his injury.
49* CarnivalOfKillers: There's not only Chigurh, but Harrelson's character, and the random hitmen Chigurh kills.
50* TheCartel: Real-life drug kingpin Pablo Acosta's Juarez Cartel is one of the two parties involved in the drug deal gone wrong. [[spoiler:Their hitmen eventually kill Moss.]]
51* CassandraTruth: ''"It's full of money."''
52* ColdSniper: Moss was a sniper in Vietnam, and his father (also a war veteran) says he never saw a better rifle marksman. Moss has the rather stoic and methodical personality you might expect from a sniper. Ironically, the only time Moss fires a rifle in the book is in his first scene, where he misses.
53* ConscienceMakesYouGoBack: Moss finds a dying man asking for water when he first reaches the shootout. He leaves without helping, but his conscience prickles him later at home, so he returns to the shootout scene to bring the man water... which is a mistake and kickstarts the plot.
54* ContractOnTheHitman: Carson is hired to kill Anton after [[spoiler:Anton kills the managerials who'd come out with him to survey the deal gone bad, as well as the Mexicans at the motel, causing his boss to think he's gone rogue]].
55* CounterfeitCash: [[PlayingWithATrope Downplayed]]: the money [[spoiler:within the briefcase]] is certainly authentic, but its setup is misleading, [[spoiler:as one bundle is filled with singles, most of which have a slot cut out to store a tracker]].
56* CrapsackWorld: Sheriff Bell seems to believe that this is what the world is becoming, as does his friend in El Paso, who complains about teens coloring their hair and wearing nose rings. His old mentor later sets him straight. The world isn't ''becoming'' crapsack, it's always been that way.
57* CrazyPrepared: Moss goes to some trouble setting up a proper hideout and trying to preempt his enemy's attacks. [[ProperlyParanoid If it were not for his quick thinking and planning]], he could have been killed very quickly.
58* CreepyMonotone: Chigurh speaks in one, although the slight intonation he does have at times carries almost palpable menace.
59* DeadpanSnarker: Moss speaks to his wife almost entirely in sarcasm. She eventually calls him on it, asking if he can tell her a straight answer about ''anything.'' He takes up the same habits when speaking to the teenage runaway.
60* {{Deconstruction}}: Moss is a deconstruction of the action hero, especially the older tougher variety. He thinks of himself as tough, resourceful, and morally righteous. To the audience, he comes across as greedy, vain, and stupid, never really thinking of the consequences of his actions, either to himself or those around him. Like Sheriff Bell, Moss is an archetype of an era that never existed when men never gave in to bad guys, the lines of black and white were clear, and the hero got to ride off into the sunset when it's over. He doesn't seem to realize that the world is and has always been a much darker place where men like that have no place. [[spoiler:Unlike Bell, he never realizes, and pays the ultimate price for his arrogance.]]
61* DecoyProtagonist: Llewelyn Moss, who [[spoiler:dies several chapters before the end of the novel]].
62* DeepSouth: The setting, although the simple folk oblivious to the evil encroaching upon them evoke shades of SweetHomeAlabama.
63* DespairEventHorizon: Bell crosses it [[spoiler:after the deaths of Llewelyn and Carla Jean]]. A conversation with his Uncle Ellis reminds him that criminality and senseless violence have always been part of life in the region. Bell's narration ends on an ambiguous note as he relates two dreams he had. (They seem to allude to Creator/CormacMcCarthy's masterpiece ''Literature/TheRoad''.)
64* {{Determinator}}: ''All'' the men. [[spoiler:But Chigurh trumps everyone else; ''nothing'', not even potentially crippling injuries, can keep him down for long.]]
65* DiceRollDeath:
66** Anton Chigurh uses a coin toss to decide whether to kill or spare certain people.
67** When Chigurh escapes the police station, he stops a driver on a highway to kill him and steal his car. The poor guy just happened to be the only one on the road.
68* DeliberateValuesDissonance: It's 1980. No one ever seems to find it notable that Moss met his wife when she was 16 and less than half his age. When the 15-year-old runaway offers herself to him, and he refuses repeatedly, she asks if he's gay.
69* DissonantSerenity: One of the most chilling aspects of Chigurh. Moss notes that Chigurh simply stares at him mutely when at shotgun-point.
70* DownerEnding: Not only [[spoiler:is the deuteragonist murdered (off-screen)]], but then [[spoiler:the villain murders the hero's wife (again, off-screen) and escapes justice, leaving an old man to contemplate his inability to act in the face of so much seemingly pointless violence of the world. On a slightly brighter note, we see that Chigurh is himself not immune to the impartiality of the universe. While he survives the film, he winds up wounded and without his money. The novel also implies that the police are still tracking down Chigurh, indicating that soon he will be caught]].
71* TheDreaded: Even other [[PsychoForHire hardened]] [[ProfessionalKiller killers]] are afraid of Chigurh, and with good reason.
72* DumbassHasAPoint: When the none-too-bright Deputy Torbert draws his gun upon seeing evidence of a break-in, Bell states confidently that he won't need it because everyone is obviously gone. After asserting that it's better safe than sorry, Tolbert defers to Bell and moves to holster his gun, but Bell reconsiders and has him keep his gun out after all.
73* EurekaMoment: Subverted. During his conversation with Carla Jean, Sheriff Bell mentions that modern cattle processors use an air gun for efficient killing. However, [[GoodCannotComprehendEvil he is unable to realize]] that there's a connection to Chigurh's victims -- who apparently died of bullet wounds with no bullets -- and dismisses it as a stray thought.
74* EveryoneHasStandards: Moss is a bit of an asshole who married a girl he met when she was 16 and steals cartel money, but he's faithful to his wife, spares Chigurh when he has him at his mercy, and [[spoiler:gets killed because he disarmed himself to try to save the teenage runaway]].
75* EvilCannotComprehendGood: For all that he's an unstoppable monster who cannot be argued with, the old man at the gas station gets a small but powerful retort when he responds "I was just passing the time. If you don't want to accept that, I don't know what I can do for you." It seems almost to ''[[BlueAndOrangeMorality enrage]]'' Chigurh that someone would try to be friendly to someone else, even when they don't have to be, just for the sake of being nice.
76* EvilIsPetty:
77** Chigurh is willing to [[spoiler:belittle and possibly kill a gas station attendant for ''trying to make small talk with him'']].
78** Chigurh recalls how he murdered someone over some petty insult at a bar. He can't even remember what the guy said.
79* {{Expy}}: Chigurh is one of Franchise/TheTerminator. WordOfGod acknowledged this and said that the ending where [[spoiler:Chigurh has a violent bone break]] was to make him seem less like a machine.
80* FaceDeathWithDignity: Discussed when Chigurh is about to kill [[spoiler:Carson]].
81--->'''Chigurh:''' You should admit your situation. There would be more dignity in it.
82** The accountant seems remarkably unfazed considering Chigurh has just killed the only other man in the room with him; he just calmly asks if he's going to die next.
83* FalseConfession: A cartel hitman gets convicted and sentenced to death for some of Chigurh's crimes. When Bell interviews him, the man brags about committing the crimes, giving inaccurate details about how they were perpetrated.
84* FluffyTheTerrible: Referenced when Moss mishears Chigurh's name as "Sugar." He continues calling him that even after Wells tries to correct him.
85* FreudianTrio: Moss is the Ego, Chigurh is the Id (representing darkness and violence), Bell the Superego (representing all that is good and rational). Going on the Good vs. Evil, with man in the middle interpretation, that is.
86* GoodCannotComprehendEvil: A major theme of the story, embodied by Sheriff Bell.
87* GoodOlBoy: Seeing as the story is set in rural Texas, there are plenty of these. Sheriff Bell, with his wistfulness for a better past that never was, is perhaps the best example.
88[[/folder]]
89
90[[folder:H-Z]]
91* HandyCuffs: Initially, Chigurh's hands were cuffed from behind, but while the cop is distracted on the phone he slips his feet between his hands so that the cuffs are in front of him, and then uses them to strangle the cop. The narration indicates that Chigurh has practiced this maneuver in his spare time.
92* HappilyMarried: Ed Tom Bell and Loretta; Llewelyn and Carla Jean (though they snark at each other occasionally).
93* HatesSmallTalk: The unfettered, purpose-driven Chigurh does not respond well to idle chit-chat.
94* HeadsOrTails: Anton Chigurh flips a coin to decide whether to kill a potential victim.
95* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Moss himself near the end.]]
96* HeroKiller: Anton Chigurh murders [[spoiler:Carson Wells and Carla Jean]].
97* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Though he doesn't appear, real-life Mexican drug kingpin Pablo Acosta is hinted to be one of the parties interested in recovering the stolen briefcase.
98* HollywoodSilencer: Chigurh's Remington 11-87 shotgun has a silencer the size of a soda can. The narration notes the deep chugging sound the silenced shotgun makes.
99* IdiotBall: Moss going back to give the dying man water (when he's likely already dead at that point), which is what sets the chase in motion. He even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this when he says he's about to do something really stupid.
100* IGaveMyWord: A dark example. When they briefly connect over the phone, Chigurh demands that Moss surrender himself and the money, or else he'll track down and murder his wife Carla Jean. Moss, predictably, refuses the ultimatum. [[spoiler:At the end even though Moss is dead and Chigurh has already recovered the cash, he shows up at her house and makes good on his promise, using this exact justification.]]
101* IfIDoNotReturn:
102-->'''Llewelyn:''' If I don't come back, tell Mother I love her.\
103'''Carla Jean:''' Your mother's dead.\
104'''Llewelyn:''' Well, then I'll tell her myself.
105* ImprobableAge: Discussed by Bell. He notes that he was elected sheriff of a county as big as Delaware at the age of 25, having already become a war hero. He recalls that a previous sheriff became a deputy by the age of 18. He also knows someone who was a pastor and a pillar of his community by the age of 21.
106* ImprobableWeaponUser: Chigurh. He uses a pneumatic cattle bolt gun as a a lock-breaker and improvised weapon, and his primary firearm is a silenced Remington 11-87 shotgun with a pistol grip.
107* IronicEcho:
108** Not verbally, but when Chigurh [[spoiler:gets into a car collision that gives him a nasty open fracture (read: bone piercing skin)]], he asks one of two youths for his shirt as a (partial) disguise in exchange for a lot of money. Llewelyn does much the same thing earlier after getting wounded by Anton, asking three college-age kids for a coat in exchange for a lot of money.
109** When Sheriff Bell first meets Carla Jean, he removes his hat, which she takes to mean that he's informing her that her husband is dead, and Bell has to quickly calm her down and explain that he was just being polite before she has a breakdown. Later on, they meet again, and he removes his hat once more, only this time [[spoiler:Llewelyn]] is actually dead, and it takes Carla Jean a moment to understand this time.
110* TheIngenue:
111** Carla Jean Moss, who is genuinely innocent of Llewellyn's antics.
112** Zig-zagged by the teenage runaway who gets picked up by Moss. She's wide-eyed and rather naive, but she also offers to have sex with Moss and will drink and smoke pot. The [[spoiler:coroner says her corpse looks "skanky," though this is implied to be a callous opinion]].
113* KarmaHoudini: Played with. [[spoiler:Llewelyn's killers get away just as Bell arrives, but he managed to kill one and sent the rest running in fear.]] Later, [[spoiler:Chigurh does kill his wife, but she defies his nonsensical logic. Shortly after, a car slams into him, apparently killing him, but he manages to get out and escape after bribing some kids nearby to keep quiet -- many critics saw this as a clean getaway, but even with his medical knowledge, the injuries he received are not treatable by himself, and are very likely to put him out of commission, if not kill him.]] It's spelled out further in the book, where [[spoiler:one of the kids rats him out and the sheriffs know where he's going.]]
114* KilledOffscreen: Happens to both [[spoiler:Llewelyn and Carla Jean]].
115* LampshadeHanging:
116-->'''Carla Jean:''' You don't have to do this.\
117'''Chigurh:''' People always say the same thing.\
118'''Carla Jean:''' What did they say?\
119'''Chigurh:''' They say, "you don't have to do this."
120* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler:Chigurh gets T-boned by a speeding car a few minutes after killing Carla Jean. While Chigurh's shown to have fixed his wounds before, the sort of fracture he receives is going to put him out of commission for a long while (if not permanently) without real medical aid.]]
121* LiteraryAllusionTitle: Taken from the poem [[http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/781/ "Sailing to Byzantium"]] by Creator/WilliamButlerYeats. While in the original poem the speaker is an old man who can no longer keep up with the lust (Eros) of the young, Sheriff Bell is an old man who can't keep up with the violence (Thanatos) of the young.
122* LoveAtFirstSight: Carla Jean describes to Sheriff Bell how she had a premonition that she would meet "the one" while working at Wal-Mart. When she first set eyes on Moss, she instantly knew that he was him. Moss also seems to have shared her instant attraction, as he asked her out almost immediately after meeting her.
123* AMacGuffinFullOfMoney: Moss has a suitcase containing $2 million. Chigurh is hunting Moss to get the money. Bell is hunting Chigurh and simultaneously hunting Moss in hopes of getting him to safety. [[spoiler:Chigurh never catches up with Moss, and Bell never catches up with either Moss or Chigurh. Bell and Chigurh ''almost'' cross paths, but they never actually meet one another.]]
124* MissingFloor: Wells notes that the floor the middle manager is on cannot be accessed normally by the elevator.
125* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Or in Chigurh's case, murder is the ONLY solution.
126* NewOldWest: A very Western story, set in a very Western state, complete with sundowns and showdowns and gunfights.
127* NiceMeanAndInBetween: A darker example than most.
128** Ed Tom Bell is TheSheriff who is trying to stop Moss and Chigurh.
129** Anton Chigurh is a ProfessionalKiller who's out to get the money from Moss and kill him for the trouble. Not that the trouble really makes any difference, as he's also a psycho who ends up killing most people he meets.
130** Llewelyn Moss is an opportunistic {{Jerkass}} who's in it for himself, but he's not psychotic like Chigurh.
131* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished:
132** Moss' act of mercy to bring the dying Mexican mobster water gets the cartels on his trail, though it also gives him warning that someone is looking for the cash, which sets Moss running and helps him figure out that there's a tracking beacon in the cash before Chigurh can ambush him.
133** Moss spares Chigurh's life during their one and only face-to-face meeting. Chigurh shoots at Moss as he flees at the first opportunity and continues hunting him.
134** Moss [[spoiler:is ultimately killed because he drops his gun when a cartel hitman takes the teenage runaway hostage. The hitman kills her and Moss anyway, though Moss manages to kill him too]].
135* NominalHero: Moss. He is impulsive, prideful, and stubborn, to the point that his actions get a lot of innocent people killed as well as ensure his own doom. However, we are not supposed to see him as a hero so much as an opportunistic, foolish man in a situation far out of his depth. Character-wise, the only thing he really has going for him is that the men hunting for him (both Chigurh and the Mexican cartel) are a lot worse.
136* TheNondescript: Chigurh is medium height, medium build, with a dark complexion, dark brown hair, and blue eyes. Moss thinks he looks "vaguely exotic," while one of the bicycle kids has trouble describing him, saying he "looks like anyone."
137* NoodleIncident: When Wells is introduced, his employer asks him when he last saw Chigurh, and Wells cites the exact date. We ''do'' later learn that Wells is indeed familiar with Chigurh... but we never learn what that earlier incident was about or (given what a psychopath Chigurh is) how Wells managed to survive.
138* NostalgiaAintLikeItUsedToBe: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with.]] Sheriff Bell often muses about how someone like Chigurh wouldn't have gotten away with anything in the "old days," but this claim is undermined at the end when his uncle Ellis tells him a tale of how his grandfather was killed in cold blood on his own porch in 1909 by a trio of Native Americans, and then says to him flat out that claiming the "old days" were better or more moral is nothing but vanity.
139* NotAfraidOfHell: The nineteen-year-old murderer at the beginning fits this trope like a glove, going to the electric chair without complaint after murdering his girlfriend for no apparent reason:
140-->''"Said he knew he was goin' to hell. Told it to me out of his own mouth. I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't. I thought I'd never seen a person like that and it got me to wonderin' if maybe he was some new kind. I watched them strap him into the seat and shut the door. He might've looked a bit nervous about it but that was about all. I really believe that he knew he was goin' to be in hell in fifteen minutes... He was not hard to talk to. [[AffablyEvil Called me Sheriff]]. But I didn't know what to say to him. [[TheSoulless What do you say to a man that by his own admission has no soul]]?"''
141* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Anton Chigurh is stymied is when the receptionist at the trailer park office refuses to tell him where Moss works. He repeats his demand in an attempt to intimidate her, but she doesn't cave. It's implied that he is about to start beating the information out of her but then hears a toilet flush in the next room and decides that it's too risky.
142* ParrotExposition: Chigurh, especially so during the gas station scene:
143-->'''Owner:''' Will there be something else?\
144'''Chigurh:''' I don't know, will there?\
145'''Owner:''' Is something wrong?\
146'''Chigurh:''' With what?\
147'''Owner:''' With anything.\
148'''Chigurh:''' Is that what you're asking me? Is there something wrong with anything?\
149'''Owner:''' Will there be anything else?\
150'''Chigurh:''' You already asked me that.\
151'''Owner:''' Well, I need to see about closing now.\
152'''Chigurh:''' See about closing?\
153'''Owner:''' Yes, sir.\
154'''Chigurh:''' What time do you close?\
155'''Owner:''' Now. We close now.\
156'''Chigurh:''' Now is not a time. What time do you close?\
157'''Owner:''' Generally around dark. At dark.\
158'''Chigurh:''' ({{beat}}) You don't know what you're talking about, do you?
159* PetTheDog: Llewelyn goes back to the scene of the gunfight with a full carton of water out of sympathy for the driver he refused to help earlier ("I ain't got no damn agua") who was probably dead anyway.
160* PileBunker: One of Chigurh's weapons of choice.
161* PlayAlongPrisoner: In his first scene, Anton Chigurh has allowed a deputy to arrest him. He slips his cuffs from back to front, kills the deputy, and steals a police car. All just to prove a point about supreme will.
162* PoliceAreUseless: The cops are either shot or are too late -- and even then, Ed Tom is either unwilling or unable to do more, such as help federals and DEA agents with investigating the bizarre murder scene. [[spoiler:In the end, he decides he's had enough after Llewelyn is killed right before he manages to reach him.]]
163* ProfessionalKiller: Both Anton Chigurh and Carson Wells are assassins-for-hire and psychopathic, but Chigurh ''far'' outstrips Wells in the latter aspect.
164* PsychoForHire: Chigurh turns out to be only interesting in hiring himself out to others rather than taking the money for himself. This seems to play into his bizarre worldview.
165* ScarilyCompetentTracker:
166** Carson Wells deduces the location of Moss in three hours.
167** Bell is able to unpack a lot of what happened at the initial shootout by analyzing the physical tracks on the ground. Actually hunting down Moss proves more difficult.
168** Subverted by Anton Chigurh, however. Llewelyn eventually realizes that there's no way Chigurh could be tracking him so effectively without some sort of advantage. Sure enough, there's a tracking device in the money bag.
169* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Sheriff Bell is annoyed by Deputy Torbert's unnecessarily florid turns of phrase, such as saying "said wound" when discussing the autopsy report of the motorist.
170* ShootOutTheLock: Chigurh uses the cattle gun to do this when he's not using it to kill people.
171* ASimplePlan: A very dark take. All Moss has to do is escape the cartel, send his wife away, and run long enough to ensure he's shaken them off his tail before he returns and gets to safety with his wife and the money. Right?
172* SinisterSouthwest: A poacher in 1980s Southwest Texas finds the aftermath of a drug deal gone bloody in the desert and retrieves a briefcase full of money, leading to a peculiar hitman violently pursuing him across the state.
173* TheSociopath: Anton Chigurh is such a potent one that he's a walking force of unstoppable evil.
174* StealingFromThieves: Both the book and [[Film/NoCountryForOldMen its movie adaptation]] invoke this trope to get [[ImplacableMan Anton Chigurh]] chasing [[AntiHero Llewelyn Moss]], a Vietnam veteran who stumbles on a drug deal gone awry. He steals a [[BriefcaseFullOfMoney suitcase full of money]] from the scene, only to get caught going back to the crime scene...
175* SurpriseCarCrash: One is used as part of its AntiClimax ending. After [[spoiler:Anton Chigurh kills Carla Jean and drives off before the police arrive, his car is struck down by another vehicle as he is leaving the neighborhood. Chigurh is as much a victim of circumstance as anyone else]].
176* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
177** Gunshots are not something you can easily shrug off, even if you are a trained veteran or an unstoppable killing machine. Both Llewelyn and Chigurh have to carefully treat bullet wounds they get, and both spend days recuperating.
178** Llewelyn and Chigurh don't face off in an explosive showdown. [[spoiler:Chigurh isn't the only person looking for Llewelyn's stolen money, and unsurprisingly, some cartel hitmen get the drop on Llewelyn instead, resulting in him being killed anticlimactically]].
179** [[spoiler:Chigurh's car crash shows that, for all he thinks of himself as an unstoppable entity, he's still just a man, and evading death in a gun fight without breaking a sweat doesn't mean you can't be killed by something as mundane as a driver on a sleepy suburban street running through a stop sign. The fact that he only survives through pure luck just drives it home further.]]
180* TheSyndicate: The Matacumbe Petroleum Group, which is the company that owns the stolen money and hires both Anton Chigurh and Carson Wells to recover it.
181* TemptingFate:
182** Moss phones Wells, [[spoiler:only to find him dead]]. When Chigurh speaks with him, Moss confidently asserts he has found a way to beat him without involving his wife. [[spoiler:Moss goes to a motel to prepare, and he ends up dead, not even by Chigurh himself, but the Mexican mobsters looking for the money.]]
183* ThatsWhatSheSaid: Amazingly enough. In the book, during the first exchange between Moss and Carla Jean.
184-->Keep it up.\
185That's what she said.
186* TooDumbToLive: The cop in the opening. Instead of putting Anton Chigurh in a jail cell after arresting him, he turns his back on him and sits at his desk to make a phone call, [[TemptingFate believing he has everything under control]].
187* TrespassingToTalk: The protagonist's wife encountering PsychoForHire Anton Chigurh in her house, having been waiting there for her to return.
188* UncertainDoom: After Chigurh kills [[spoiler:the man who hired Wells]], the accountant asks Chigurh what he'll do to him:
189-->'''Accountant:''' Are you going to shoot me?\
190'''Chigurh:''' [[HeadsIWinTailsYouLose That depends]]: [[YouDidntSeeThat do you]] [[IWasNeverHere see me?]]
191* WeaponBasedCharacterization:
192** Bell uses a revolver for his service weapon, highlighting his old-fashioned ways.
193** Chigurh carries a captive bolt pistol wherever he goes and also has a silenced shotgun to sneak up on targets with, demonstrating his resourcefulness and brutal efficiency.
194* WhamLine: It doubles as a BadassBoast...or it would have, if not for the eventual subversion.
195-->'''Llewelyn Moss:''' Yeah, I'm going to bring you something, alright. I decided to make you a special project of mine. [[BringIt You ain't going have to come looking for me at all.]]
196* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: The duel between Chigurh and Moss in the book, Moss turns on his bathroom light and hides in the dark, and when Chigurh inspects the bathroom, Moss holds him at gunpoint and escorts him down the hall with Chigurh facing away. He has the opportunity to kill him right there, but is apparently reluctant to commit murder.
197* YouKeepTellingYourselfThat: It practically defines the character of Anton Chigurh. The film version stresses this even further; in the book, he manages to intimidate [[spoiler:Carla Jean into calling the coin toss. In the film, we never see her break. She]] refuses to give him that 'out', and it's the closest he gets to a defeat.
198* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Chigurh executes a number of people he's working with, apparently because he no longer needs them. You might think that he's doing it so that he can keep the for himself, but no, he's just killing people.
199[[/folder]]
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