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Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:43 pm**

1. So Josh Brolin is out hunting a while, but never hears gunfire. That means the wounded man was there for sometime prior to him arriving. The wildlife being in the area proves this as well. Gunfire of that magnitude would have driven them off. Thus, his survival to that point was miraculous.
2. Josh Brolin is supposed to be a very wise fellow, yet is too stupid to dump the bag he found the money in? He wouldn't have found the transmitter...maybe...but anyone with a brain would've made that move first.
3. Then Mr. Brolin, decides hours later to go back to the scene of the shooting where dead criminals lay around with automatic weapons and hundreds of pounds of drugs just to take some water to the wounded man.
4. The guy has been sitting there, mortally wounded, for a day or more now. A less than smart man would assume he is now dead. Brolin decides to chance it anyway.
5. His conscience is what drives him back, but it doesn't make him return the millions he stole from the scene.
6. Hitmen are NOT serial killers.
7. Hitmen do NOT kill the people who hire them. There are so many things wrong with that concept. Who the fuck hires a hitman who kills his clients? Who even hears about him since everyone that hires him is dead?
8. Hitmen survive by operating below the radar. They don't randomly create violence just because they're sadistic.
9. The coin flip is the trademark of two-face who did it to much greater effect.
10. "Magic" exists in this universe as all three main characters exhibit psychic abilities.
11. Tommy Lee Jones' character could have been removed from the film without any ill effects to the movie whatsoever.
12. Woody Harrelson's character is not only pointless, but beyond stupid. He's supposed to be this tough guy who's smart enough to know what he's facing, yet he's stupid enough to not realize that the killer would come for him? (And how the fuck did Javier know he was even in town and on the case? MAGIC!) He's also stupid enough to not cause a scene when he and Javier are in public? Even if he died, he would have put a big damper on Mr. Javier's career and future.
13. The scene with Brolin's girlfriend is just ridiculously stupid. Hitmen do not kill innocents for no reason. Even if you want to paint them as psychos, they don't kill without getting paid.
14. Brolin's character was painted as too smart to make as many stupid mistakes as he made.

Posted: **Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:13 pm**

As you said, these folk ain't supposed to act realistic. Soon as Brolin headed back to the scene of the drug deal w\o searching the bag, I figured I needed to change my perception of logic.

& the pace is all fucked up, everywhere. The ending scene...they just decide to stop the film there, in what almost seems like mid-anecdote?

I don't think you can take Tommy Lee's cop role out of the film. Sure, it doesn't matter to the plot, but in case you ain't noticed, plot ain't what they're shooting for.

Posted: **Sun Feb 01, 2009 4:37 pm**

Point-by-point...

1 - 5) This is all forced so that Josh Brolin is forced to cross paths w\ Anton. You've got a wanna-be bad-ass & an actual bad-ass in the world. Wanna-be just took actual's cash. If actual bad-ass were there in the first place, the deal wouldn't've gone to hell, & there's no cash for wanna-be to find, no movie. So yeah, they had to bullshit something. They can't meet straight off at the beginning. The alternative would be Brolin's character stumbling into shyte as Anton was showing up. The real bad-ass doesn't let scrubs get away unless the scrub is insanely prepared or lucky, so that possibility is out the window.

6 -

The actual bad-ass is a bad-ass at being an enforcer. When shit goes wrong, he fixes it. That's it. Doesn't matter if it's fixed nicely or properly or without a mess; it gets fixed. The entire flick, Anton is shown to be exceedingly brutal, but not blood-thirsty (he doesn't kill everyone he interacts w\). The cowboy, on the other hand has a limit to his ruthlessness. He isn't balls-to-the-wall all the time. It takes Anton threatening his wife before he agrees to a final showdown. An actual bad-ass would've turned the tables on Anton & started hunting him.

9) The coin flip is there because Anton thinks he isn't the reason (ultimately) why people should die or live. He could let the cowboy's wife walk, but the cowboy neglected to deal for her, so consequently, Anton needs to balance the scales cos a deal's a deal, damnit. Every time he flips it, it's a new deal. While Two-Face uses it, there ain't much else it could've been. A magic 8-ball or deck of cards or some dice -- anything that is left up to chance.

10) You may be more right than you know. The fact that we're seeing the flick about these folk interacting means that not only is it possible they'll interact in the movie world, it's fucking required. Not only that, required at specific times in specific ways to make specific points. But since plot doesn't seem to be the main push of this script...

11) I disagree. W\o Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff (another actual bad-ass, by the by, if one that's past his prime), it's not the same flick, especially given the sequence where he returns to the final crime scene & busts in the door w\ the blown-out lock. Even more so when you consider the final scene. & the title. Tommy Lee Jones's character is the only actual bad-ass in the film that survives to retirement. & he doesn't retire cos he wants to, he retires cos he has to. The game moves too quick for him now. It's better left to the Antons & wanna-be bad-asses of the world.

12) Woody's dude is an example of another wanna-be. Once he got capped by Anton, then I was virtually certain the cowboy was also getting capped. There ain't no room in Anton's world for wanna-be folk that get in his way. He's supposed to act like a moron.

13) See the comment on Anton's interpretation of the cowboy's deal for his wife.

14) While I could cop out here & say, "Even bright folk makes stupid mistakes," that'd be cheap. Since normal notions of plot (another word for "cause & effect") seems to have gone out the window, I have the following argument...The point isn't how smart the cowboy was. Both he & Anton appeared to have equal intellectual abilities. Anton was better equipped from the get-go, but the cowboy had a $2 million bankroll to get whatever he needed (which is the only way he survived Anton for as long as he did). The only difference between the two is Anton is a natural predator, actively hunting & reordering shit he sees wrong in the world. The cowboy is a somewhat laid back, passive dude that doesn't make the world bend to his will. He rolls with the punches & moves fluidly in & out of places Anton would blast his way thru. That being said, in a man-to-man showdown in a brutal world, Anton's type beats the cowboy. Beats Woody's type, too. I think if the flick had taken place twenty years ago, Tommy Lee Jones's character (the actual bad-ass in his heyday) tracks down Anton.

Edited By Malcolm on 1233524387

Posted: **Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:05 pm**

1. The guy was clearly near death, dying for a while. His pleas of water are indicative of a) stomach wounds and/or b) being stuck out there a long time. Seems reasonable that the gunfight was 1-3 days prior.
2. Agreed. Step 1, examine everything. Too many unknowns, transponder or not. I also would have split up the physical location of the money better, and gotten the FUCK out of dodge, fast and far.
3. This is to help distinguish his character and humanity from the others in the movie.
4. Yes, but see #3
5. Yes, see #3. He's not a killer, he's not a murderer, but he's like a lot of people: He believes he deserves a better life than what he's been dealt, and see's an opportunity to get it.
6-8: I kinda agree, I'm not entirely clear on who involved him or why. He's not a cleaner. At first, I didn't think anyone had hired him, but the movie certainly hints later that he was hired.
9. The first one was super tense, imho.
10. I'm good with magic, no problems here.
11. Yes. That one scene towards the end at the hotel, but just barely there.
12. Yeah, that was odd to me... I expected more.
13. Remember, he's not a hitman, he's a psychopath. He made it clear he killed people who saw him, and that he held to his principles. Once the husband didn't work to keep her alive, he had to keep his word.
14. Yeah. Kinda felt this going a different way with him. Was a little disappointed.

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