10 Awful Plot Twists That Completely Ruined Great Movies

2. No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men
Paramount Vantage

The Movie

Oscar-winning crime thriller from the Coen brothers, in which a bewilderingly-haircutted hitman (Javier Bardem) violently pursues Vietnam vet' Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) across Texas, in search of a case of stolen drugs money.

The Awful Twist

Don't get me wrong, No Country for Old Men is still a great movie. But that anticlimax can't be ignored, even after repeated watches. It may not ruin the memory of No Country altogether, but after an hour and a half of Moss and Chigurh hurtling inexorably towards one another, there still comes a sinking feeling when that inevitable showdown never comes.

To invest so much in the lead, watching him escape time and again from the clutches of Chigurh and cronies, it's disheartening when you discover he's simply been killed off-screen in a motel drive-by. All we see is a truck full of Mexican gangsters driving away, and Moss' body laid flat at his motel room door. Its the Coens, as ever, cheekily toying with their audience as well as with the cinematic norm, but it's one time where they might've been better suited to follow convention.

In this post: 
Sunshine
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1