10 Movies That Ingeniously Subverted Expectations
7. No Country For Old Men
The Coen brothers' Best Picture-winning masterpiece manages to be a ludicrously entertaining neo-Western even while denying viewers the tropey catharsis they were surely expecting.
If the first two-thirds of the movie are clearly shuttling audiences towards a final showdown between our "hero" Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) and the Terminator-like assassin Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), the Coens decided to deny them that violent pleasure.
Instead, Moss is killed off-screen by a gang of Mexicans an entire half-hour before the end of the movie, and though it then seems like over-the-hill Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) will have to step in and avenge Moss, that's not what happens either.
Chigurh is never apprehended and it's implied he got away with the briefcase of money he was pursuing, while Bell retires from the police after lamenting his inability to keep up with the increasing violence of the region.
To hammer the point home, the final scene is a quiet, meditative conversation between Bell and his wife, where he reflects on two dreams which symbolise how utterly helpless he is to combat the violent landscape surrounding him.
It's easy to see why the Coens' aggressive subversion of the typical hard-boiled thriller irked some audiences, but by shying away from a more conventional shoot 'em up climax, the film harbours a far more enduring - and truthful - power.