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What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? Call it. Just call it. You need to call it. I can't call it for you, or it wouldn't be fair. [...] Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life; you just didn't know it. Do you know what date is on this coin? 1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here, and now it's here—and it's either heads or tails, and you have to say. Call it. [...] You stand to win everything. Call it.
~ Chigurh gambling a gas station owner's life on a coin flip, and his most famous quote.
I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning. Yet even though I could have told you how all of this would end I thought it not too much to ask that you have a final glimpse of hope in the world to lift your heart before the shroud drops, the darkness. Do you see?
~ Chigurh rationalizing to Moss's wife her imminent death by his hand in the novel.

Anton Chigurh is the main antagonist of the 2005 novel No Country for Old Men by the late Cormac McCarthy and its 2007 film adaptation of the same name.

Depicted as a ruthless hitman with an unwavering adherence to his own ethics, he is among the most prominent characters of the unstoppable killing machine genre. He is the archenemy of Llewelyn Moss, the man whom he is after.

He was portrayed by Javier Bardem, who also played Felix Reyes-Torrena in Collateral, Raoul Silva in Skyfall, Felix Marti in The Gunman, Armando Salazar in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Him in mother!.

Biography[]

In the novel, Anton is portrayed as the main antagonist, even though he never shared a scene with the story's main protagonist, Ed Tom Bell. His main weapon of choice is a Captive Bolt Pistol, which he uses to smash holes in human skulls or open door locks. He also uses a silenced semi-automatic shotgun, which comes in handy in the scene where he single-handedly killed a group of Mexicans who were sent to kill Chigurh's target, Llewelyn Moss. He also carries with him a TEC-9 pistol. He also collects coins which he always carries for luck.

Not much is known about Anton Chigurh's past, with the only things people being able remember about him are a very weird hair style and a tendency to kill without hesitation or emotion.

Chigurh has a talent for improvisation, like using an antique coin to open an air vent, killing a police officer with his own handcuffs and using a boy's shirt as a sling.

Chigurh is a hitman who has no remorse or compassion for other human beings. He is described by one character as a "psychopathic killer", while another character compares him to the bubonic plague. His main weapon of choice is a captive bolt pistol, which he uses to either kill his victims or to destroy cylinder locks on doors. He also wields a suppressed semi-automatic shotgun and pistol (a TEC-9 in the film adaptation). In 1980, he is hired to retrieve a bag of money from a drug deal that went wrong, but he discovers that a hunter named Llewelyn Moss has taken it already and has left town. Chigurh tracks Moss down to a motel using a receiver that connects to a transponder hidden in the satchel of money.

However, Moss unintentionally tricks Chigurh into believing he was in the room next to his when he hides the money in the ventilation system. That room was being occupied by a group of Mexican gangsters who were set to ambush Moss. Chigurh brutally murders the Mexicans and searches for the money, but it is nowhere to be found as Moss heard the gunshot and hastily left the motel with the money.

Moving to a hotel in the border town of Eagle Pass, Moss discovers the tracking device as he wonders how there is someone managed to track him down, but Chigurh has already found him. Their firefight spills onto the streets, killing a bystander, and wounding both. Moss flees across to Mexico, stashing the case of money in weeds along the Rio Grande.

Chigurh finds out about a bounty hunter named Carson Wells who, like Chigurh, has been hired to retrieve the bag of money. Chigurh kills Wells after Wells tries to make a deal with Moss. Chigurh ruthlessly tracks Moss down until Moss is eventually killed by Mexican gangsters at another motel. Once again Moss hid the money in the vents, which was unseen by the Mexicans at the time of their ambush of Moss. After his previous experience with Moss, however, Chigurh knows where the money will be. He arrives at the scene of the crime after the police have left, retrieves the money from the vent and returns it to his employers.

Near the end, Chigurh pays a visit to Moss' grieving widow and debates whether or not to kill her, relying once more on her to call a coin toss. However, she refuses to call the coin toss, saying that the choice is "just you". After killing her and leaving her house, Chigurh is involved in a car crash, leaving him badly injured with a broken arm and a limp. He then offers money to a teenager on a bicycle to give him his t-shirt. He and the teenager create a sling for his injured arm and Chigurh leaves the scene before the ambulance arrives.

Appearance[]

In the movie, Anton appears wearing jeans, leather cowboy boots, a brown shirt, a black jacket, and a bowl haircut. In the novel, he is described as having blue eyes "like wet lapis stone"; in the film, however, he is portrayed as having brown eyes. Sometimes before he kills his victim, he flips a coin to decide their fate.

He has a great deal of physical endurance; he is capable of withstanding pain from a shotgun ricochet and a broken or fractured arm. He also has a broad medical knowledge and can even take care of his own wounds. He also shows some level of intelligence as seen when he escapes a sheriff's precinct and steals medical supplies from a drug store filled with civilians and security.

In the novel, his appearance is less remarkable; he doesn't have the distinctive bowl haircut portrayed in the film, and he is described by a witness as looking "like anybody". He is also described as being average in height and in good shape.

Personality[]

Anton Chigurh can be best described as a textbook psychopath; he is devoid of empathy and compassion, has a flat, emotionless personality, and kills without compunction or remorse.

Chigurh is described as an unstoppable, cold-hearted killing machine, but also as a man who has his own moral code, albeit a twisted one. While he does not kill at random or without purpose, his reasons for murder can be abstract, and seem almost senseless to an outside viewer. He seems to take pleasure in not just killing people, but also deciding whether they live or die. He sees himself as a hand of fate, an instrument that exacts consequences on a person based on their past actions.

He occasionally gives his victims the chance to survive by making deals, either personally or by flipping a coin, and in one scene says, "What's the most you've ever lost on a coin toss?" In the novel, Chigurh is depicted as a man of great endurance, capable of withstanding the pain of a fractured arm and multiple gunshot wounds. In the film, Anton kills or attempts to kill nearly every person he meets. The only people he spares are a gas station proprietor who correctly guesses his coin flip, a woman in a trailer park where he is hunting Llewellyn, the woman at the front desk of the hotel in which he murders Carson Wells, and the two bicycle riding kids who give him one of their shirts to bind his wounds after he breaks his arm in a car accident.

Reception[]

Critics have praised Javier Bardem's portrayal of Chigurh, which won him an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA. Chigurh has been added to numerous lists of greatest villains; UGO.com has ranked him #10 in their list of Top 11 Psychopaths, and he is ranked #44 in The 100 Greatest Movie Characters on Empire.com. He has also been parodied in The Simpsons and Disaster Movie.

Victims[]

  • Unnamed Person - Killed off-screen to get their car. (Debatable)
  • Sheriff Lamar - Strangled with a pair of police handcuffs.
  • Unnamed Man - shot in the head with a cattle pistol.
  • Unnamed Mexican Gang Member - Shot in the chest.
  • Unnamed Mexican Gang Member - Shot in the head.
  • Unnamed Mexican Gang Member - Shot in the arm and chest with a silenced shotgun.
  • Unnamed Mexican Gang Member - Shot in the chest with a silenced shotgun.
  • Unnamed Mexican Gang Member - Shot in the chest with a silenced shotgun off-camera, body heard hitting the ground.
  • Unnamed Hotel Clerk - Killed off-screen.
  • Unnamed Man - Shot in the neck and head.
  • Carson Wells - Shot in the chest with a silenced shotgun.
  • Unnamed Mexican Drug Lord - Shot in the neck.
  • Unnamed Man - Killed off-screen.
  • Carla Jean Moss - Killed off-screen.

Quotes[]

Anton: Don't put it in your pocket; it's your lucky quarter.
Shopkeeper: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton: Anywhere not in your pocket, or it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin—which it is.
~ Anton Chigurh telling the shopkeeper to be mindful of the coin he won.
Anything can be an instrument. Small things. Things you wouldn't even notice. They pass from hand to hand. People don't pay attention. And then one day there's an accounting. And after that nothing is the same. Well, you say. It's just a coin. For instance. Nothing special there. What could that be an instrument of? You see the problem. To separate the act from the thing. As if the parts of some moment in history might be interchangeable with the parts of some other moment. How could that be? Well, it's just a coin. Yes. That's true. Is it?
~ Chigurh in the novel subsequent to sparing the shopkeeper.
If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?
~ Anton Chigurh to Wells.
I have no enemies. I don't permit such a thing.
~ Anton Chigurh to his enigmatic employer in the denouement of the novel.

Gallery[]

Images[]

Videos[]

Trivia[]

  • Javier Bardem jokingly said that he "won't be getting laid for weeks" after seeing his new haircut for the first time.
  • Bardem considers Chigurh the most evil villain he has ever portrayed, stating that "he’s the least human of them all. Chigurh is just violence. There's no empathy. There's no reason, there's no goal. There's nothing to him more than being that horrible fate in people’s lives."
    • Despite playing the role as a sadistic and cold-blooded villain, Bardem in real life is a pacifist who is against actual violence.
      • Because of this, he initially refused to play Chigurh, but later accepted the role because it was his dream to be in a Coen Brothers movie.
  • He is responsible for a total of 14 deaths throughout the film adaptation.
  • Professional wrestler Chris Jericho's heel persona from 2008 to 2010 was inspired by Chigurh.
  • There's a theory that Chigurh was a soldier in the Vietnam War much like Moss, which could explain not only his talent for improvising and endurance, but also his psychopathic and detached personality.
  • Anton Chigurh ranked at the 45th place on the website Ranker as one of the best antagonists.
    • He is also ranked by psychologists as the most realistic depiction of a psychopath in cinema.

External links[]

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