The Neo-Western crime thriller No Country For Old Men is considered one of the Coen Brothers' finest works. The Best Picture winner was adapted from Cormac McCarthy's similarly titled best-selling novel. The movie won four Oscars in total at the 80th Academy Awards.
No Country For Old Men also has one of the best movie villains of all time named Anton Chigurh. The character is played by Javier Badem who also played the Bond villain Raoul Silva in the 2012 film Skyfall. Here are the major ways the movie differs from the book.
Chigurh Has A Backstory
At the start of the movie, audiences are taken to Texas in 1980 where Anton Chigurh is seen strangling a deputy sheriff who had arrested him. He then shoots a driver with a captive bolt pistol and steals his car. But how did he end up in custody?
The movie doesn't show us how it happened but the book does. Chigurh is said to have murdered someone who made a bad remark about him. He then allowed himself to be arrested just to see if he was able to free himself later, which is exactly what he does.
Moss & Chigurh's Motel Confrontation Went Differently
In the movie, Chigurh shoots the lock off the motel room door with a bolt gun, wounding Moss in the process. The two thus begin a game of cat and mouse.
In the book, Chigurh gets the key to Moss' room from a murdered clerk and enters quietly. Moss manages to hide before taking him captive. The two have a chance to briefly know each other well before Moss flees. This leads to the next scene where there is a quick chase followed by a shootout.
Chigurh Had An Employer
There is a scene in the book where Chigurh takes the money he has recovered to a mysterious wealthy guy who he has actually never been in contact with before. The reader gets the impression that this is his employer. Of course, the employee isn't too pleased that Chuigurh found him.
He asks him how he tracked him down and Chigurh tells him not to worry about it. The important thing is that he found him. But in the movie, it's never known who hired Chigurh. As a result, his motivations are ambiguous at best and nonsensical at worst.
The Dog Chase Was Made For The Movie
There is an amazing chase scene in No Country For Old Men where a dog goes after Moss. When he jumps into the water, it follows him downstream too and swims quite brilliantly. For a moment, it looks like the angry beast going to get a bite of him pretty soon.
That almost happens but Moss gets out of the water and dries out his gun in time. He then shoots it just as it gets out of the water too and tries to attack him. Moss is lucky there. However, this scene doesn't occur in the book at all. It was created by the Coen brothers.
Moss Has Different Deaths
While Moss dies in both the movie and the film, he does so in different ways. In the movie, he accepts an invitation from a lady to have a beer with her in her hotel room. Bell later hears a shootout at the motel and rushes there only to find Moss murdered by an unknown person.
In the book, he meets a young lady who happens to be hitchhiking and gives her some money. The Mexicans that have been hunting him show up and kidnap her. They demand that he put down his gun or they kill her. He complies and puts down his gun but they still kill him.
Carla Chose The Coin Toss In The Book
Chigurh promises Moss in the movie that he is going to kill his wife Carla Jean. In the final moments of the movie, Carla comes back home from her mother's funeral to find the villain in her bedroom, as per his threat to Moss. He offers her a coin toss to determine her fate but she refuses.
She tells him that the fate of his victims isn't in their hands but in his hands. He then leaves. Carla's death is implied but not shown. Meanwhile in the book, Carla accepts his offer to call heads or tails in order to determine her fate. She calls it wrongly so he shoots her just like his other victims.
Sheriff Tom Bell Has A Backstory
The movie doesn't dig into Sheriff Bell's past like the book does. Originally, it is explained that he is a Vietnam war veteran who abandoned members of his unit during an intense gun battle in order to save his life. But instead of being reprimanded, he was awarded a Bronze Star.
This has been haunting him ever since and has proven to be a source of motivation for all that he does. He is trying to make amends for what he did and that's why he is such a fierce crime fighter. In the novel, Bell also laments how the modern world is more chaotic than the older one, hence a reference to the title.
Sheriff Tom Bell Narrated The Book's Events
The novel tells the story using the perspective of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. He is literally narrating it from start to finish. He tells the story of his investigation into a drug deal in rural Texas near the border. He also explains how he tries to track down the two main characters.
The movie also opens with a narration from Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) that is basically a reading of the book's first few paragraphs but from there, the narration stops. The Coen brothers probably avoided the use of narration so that the movie wouldn't look like an imitation of Scorsese's movies, where one of the main characters usually narrates the events as they occur.
The Gas Station Incident Has Some Minor Changes
In both the book and the movie, Chigurh intimidates a man operating a shop at a gas station. In the book, he asks him: "What's the most you ever saw lost on a coin toss?" The film deletes the word "saw." And while the setting in the book is described as dusk-like, the movie's setting is that of noon.
The gas station attendant survives in both the book and the movie. He accepts the coin flip and guesses right. Chigurh then leaves him and walks away.
The Aftermath Of The Car Accident Went Differently
In both the book and the movie, Chigurh kills Carla before leaving her house. A short while after that, he gets involved in an accident that leaves him badly injured. Luckily, he manages to walk out alive. He then bribes some teenage witnesses to not tell anyone about the incident.
This was kind of unlike him because he'd normally just kill them. Anyway, the differences then kick in. In the book, Sheriff Bell questions the teenagers about the incident. But in the movie, no such thing happens.