2. Sheriff Ed Bell Does Everything In Order To Not Do His Job Properly
The Movie:No Country For Old Men When a drug deal gone wrong leaves wielder Llewelyn Moss on the run with a briefcase full of cash and a terrifying embodiment of evil on his tail, Sheriff Ed Bell is the disillusioned Texas police officer whose job is to try and piece everything together, and hopefully save Llewelyn from a terrible fate worse than death (well, death). And although the movie presents Bell as a man who is ultimately confused by his work and the increasing levels of danger associated with it, it also depicts him as a calm, stoic and professional veteran. Which he isn't. Not really. In fact, throughout the entire movie, he actually does pretty much everything in his power to not catch that embodiment of evil I mentioned earlier, whose name is Anton Chigurh. Instead of questioning suspects on Chigurh's appearance, he drinks a glass of milk and rebuts genuinely good suggestions from his partner. When he finally does track down Moss, it's only because Moss' wife told him, but even then he's too late 'cause he opts to drive six hours to El Paso and Moss has already been killed then by the cartel. Thing is, one of the major themes in
No Country For Old Men is that Bell isn't willing to die for something that he doesn't understand - he doesn't really want to catch Chigurh, 'cause he's afraid. He's frightened to face up to something that he can't comprehend, which is why he retires at the end of the movie. But most people walked out of this film thinking: "Man, that nice sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones did his best trying to save Josh Brolin. What a shame." Nope. Bell was never really into the whole idea - a terrible sheriff, then, you'll agree.