5. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell - No Country For Old Men
From start to finish, The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men central theme is about how Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is completely outfoxed and exhausted by the younger, tougher men he is trying to track down. Throughout the film, Bell makes countless mistakes, more a result of his flagging enthusiasm than outright incompetence; he misses countless opportunities to try and track down by Llewellyn Moss and Anton Chigurh, and by film's end seems to have completely resigned himself to apathy. Cops need to be determined and driven, but by Bell's age, it seems that the spark has gone; he's an extremely morose character whose final moments on-screen (in the film's last scene) involve him discussing a dream in which his father is waiting for him, suggesting that all Bell has to look forward to is death. This guy wouldn't exactly be fun at parties let alone useful in the field, would he now?