The character of Anton Chugurh has been the subject of a plethora of written and video essays. He is clearly the standout character in the movie adaptation of No Country for Old Men. He wins in the conflict between the main characters. His determination to win and his tolerance of pain and danger are fascinating. If you need something done, he is an effective operator (as long as you are the only one he hires).
However, we all need to face up to the fact that there is nothing intellectually complex about Anton Chigurh. He is a mentally ill gangster for hire who needs a psychological justification whenever he wants to kill. We need to remember the word want. Chigurh wants to kill. He enjoys it, and his legendary coin toss adds to his enjoyment.
Anton Chigurh doesn’t have a philosophy or ideals. He has games he plays with people for his own amusement. Most of this amusement comes from the anxiety, dread and terror from those he is about to kill or put to a coin toss.
You can see the glee in Chigurh’s face as he taunts Carson Wells before shooting him. He tries to dress it up in philosophy by asking: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” Carson has no time for Chigurh’s musings outside of trying to bargain for his life (with the offer of money). It is clear in this scene that Chigurgh could have just dispatched Wells in a dignified way, for one assassin who has defeated another. Not for Chigurh. He needs to prove the supremacy of his worldview when, in reality is merely an assassin who is of superior instincts and ability (no worldview would have made Carson Wells better at the job). He kills Carson when he realises that Carson has no time for fake musings on fate and choice.
When Chigurh visits Carla Jean Moss to give her the coin toss, he calls out the nonsense of his philosophy or his idea that he is an agent of fate. You can see the frustration in his face as this happens. She is not playing (in the movie). Unlike the gas station owner, Chigurh is less amused. It doesn’t stop him from dispatching Mrs Moss. In the movie, at least, Anton does not get his ego stroked as he did with the gas station owner. Having the scene between Carla Jean and Anton exposed Anton’s nonsense. Anton’s murder of Carla Jean wasn’t mission-critical or even mission-related. It was a petty, vindictive and crude piece of thuggery. Llewelyn Moss was already dead. The money was retrieved. This agent of fate fakery was called out by Carla Jean. In the end, Chigurh is exposed as a sadist and a compulsive one at that. He spared the gas station owner because if he didn’t, his game wouldn’t make sense, and he would have to invent something more creative to terrorise his victims.
The coin toss game is designed to add complexity to Chigurh. Without it, he is little more than an efficient killer with an interesting choice of weaponry (stun gun for animals). The Academy Award-winning performance of Javier Bardem made the character worthy of study but when you break down this character to his actions and words, there is no depth to this character. If you added a backstory, it would probably be the garden-variety violent childhood trope or some military service that shaped him into a human hater. What is certain is that we make far too much of this lightly developed character.
No Country for Old Men is a great movie. Anton Chigurh is a worthy villain. However, let’s not make him out to be some intellectual icon here. His philosophy is nothing more than a method to cause terror to victims before a kill and a justification for his sadism. Similar to John Doe in Seven, killers talk all kinds of nonsense in the pursuit of blood just like people who hunt animals for sport come up with wild excuses for using a sniper rifle on a deer. Chigurh indulges his pleasure in killing. Take away his efficiency as a killer and he would have little else. The car crash at the end was telling. In any sequel, life as a cripple would likely see him murder much weaker victims than before.
What about a sitcom?