Transcription
Hey guys, welcome to this video. I'm going to attempt to convince you that Tom Bell and Anton Sugar are the same character in No Country for Old Men. This is an idea that I've had since about when the movie came out. I initially posted a thread on a movie discussion forum that no longer exists. And a couple of years ago, maybe like three or four years ago, I actually sat down and wrote out the entire script for this video, which I have since lost. So, this will be more off the cuff, but hopefully I can still present enough arguments to convince you. Let's get started.
I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job, but I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. Man would have to put his soul at hazard. You'd have to say, "Okay, I'll be part of this world." So off the bat in the opening monologue, he's talking about how there is evil for its own sake now versus like petty crime or crimes of passion, that sort of thing. Now there is like psychopathic wantton evil. And at first it sounds like he's talking about that he's going to have to retire, right? Like he he doesn't understand it and so he's unqualified to, you know, chase down these kinds of criminals or whatever, but instead he says that he's going to put his soul in hazard and be part of that world. That world that initially he couldn't be part of because he didn't understand it. So, the first time I saw this movie, the line that he's going to put his soul in hazard didn't make sense to me because why would why why is his soul in hazard for being a sheriff that goes after criminals that do evil things? The scene then right after the monologue where Anton murders the deputy probably represents Tom Bell making his decision and symbolizes him killing his quaint Andy Griffith former self.
So, you probably remember that Anton walks around with this cattle killing thing and kills a bunch of people with it and does other things with it. And it's a strange weapon, right? Like, can you think of any other movie where the murderer uses that as his weapon or have you ever heard of a news story where that was used? So, it's very, very astronomically unique, right? And yet Tom Bell, for some reason, completely unprompted, decides to describe that thing when he's talking to whatever her name is. Of course, they slaughter steer a lot different these days. Use a air gun. Shoots out a little rod about that far into the brain. Sucks right back in. Animal never knows what hit him. Why are you telling me that, Sheriff? I don't know. My mind wanders. Jesus Christ. That's not AI. That scene actually happens in the movie. And all I remembered was just him talking about that that device and finding that weird and strange. I didn't even remember her asking, "Why are you telling me this?" and then him saying, "I don't know." My mind wanders.
All right. So, I'm a person that likes to watch movie reactions because you get to relive like the experience vicariously of watching the movie for the first time. And many people have the same reaction that I have. So, I know it's a normal reaction. And that's in the scene where Anton initially breaks into what's his name? Lou Ellen's house. And he drinks their milk. People usually react like what the hell is that? Who does that? Like who in that scenario, whether you're a criminal or whoever, goes into someone's house that they don't even know these people, and drinks a glass of their milk. It's almost like they wrote that in to show you like a strange quirk that this guy has. Well, apparently it's not such a strange quirk cuz lo and behold, guess who comes in and does the exact same thing. In fact using drinking the same glass that Anton drank from and both of them looking at their reflections on the television. He's seen the same things I've seen and it certainly made an impression on me. H I bet you have seen the same things he has seen. It's also worth mentioning that it's strange that he touches the glass of milk that he thinks the criminal just touched a short while ago, which he clearly does. If you watch the scene, he mentions how well they both talk about how they just missed him citing the milk still being a little cold and having condensation on it. So then it wouldn't make much sense for him to touch it bare-handed and contaminate the evidence. But it would make sense for him to want to touch it if he were the criminal because then he can explain why his fingerprints are on that glass.
Then there is that scene where a lot of people have the same confusion where Tom Bell and Anton are finally going to have their showdown, right? Cuz they haven't met this entire time. And the editing of the film makes it look like Anton is indeed in that room that he's about to enter, but instead he's just not there. And the little throwaway explanation they give us is that Anton might have snuck out the window in the bathroom, like if he was a 95pound ninja that could do that and, you know, not make a big scene of it. Which doesn't make sense for his character, right? When else is he sneaking away like that. Anton would have thought, "Oh, this is his chance to kill the guy that is that's on his tail." But no, he's just not there. And why is Tom Bell even in Las Vegas at all and entering a crime scene that he doesn't have jurisdiction in?
All right, let's do a quick standup. How are we feeling so far about Tom Bell and Anton being the same character? Are you at 50% convinced, 30%, 70%. Now, what if I were to tell you that all of the arguments I've made so far are the smallest evidences and smallest arguments that I can make? What is probably the most popular scene from this movie? [Music] The coin scene, right? And there are actually multiple scenes where he uses the same coin thing. And can you think of another character in pop culture where someone uses a coin the same way that he does, which is to say uses a coin to determine when to let someone live or when to kill them because he suffers some kind of a split personality issue, right? Because it isn't merely that he has a coin, right? It's not that he's fascinated with coins or has a special coin or anything like that, but the fact that he uses this coin to make decisions like whether to kill or not kill someone. Where else have you seen this? Is it a common thing that just happens all the time or can you literally only think of one case? Well, Twoface, right? Obviously. And what if I told you that this isn't an AI image? Tommy Lee Jones has played one of the very few liveaction adaptations of Too Faced. This one is probably my single most convincing one, at least to me. This like out of all the ones I presented so far and that is how many movies can you think of where the antagonist and the protagonist never meet? Go ahead, pause this video. Well, you're not going to do that, but the answer is probably none. Not only that, how about this? Can you think of any movie ever where the antagonist and protagonist never meet? And also where nobody in the entire movie except for one ever meets both of them, right? A movie where everyone except one character never meets both the protagonist and the antagonist, right? They ever only meet one or the other. Now, if you can think of a movie, it's probably a movie where it's because there's a plot twist and they are the same character. Right. Right. The whole you never see both of them at the same time thing. Well, can you think of a movie where that happens? And it's not because the two characters are secretly at the end revealed to be the same person. Now, I mentioned that there is one character that does meet both of them, right? So, wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench in the whole thing? Well, no, because that one person in that one scene takes place at the very end of the movie and that character gets killed, right? So, how convenient that the one character that could have thrown a whole monkey wrench into my theory is one that gets killed so that it cannot throw a monkey wrench into the theory. So, for example, think of any of the characters in the entire movie. It doesn't matter if they're side characters. If just one of them had seen both. Like say for example there is a scene where somebody some witness of a crime or whatever is reporting having seen um Anton and they're talking to Tom Bell describing Anton. That would throw my whole theory out the window. But that doesn't happen because there's only one character in the entire movie that meets both of them. And that character's name is I don't remember her name. We'll just call her Lady. So the only character in the entire movie that sees both Tom Bell and Anton is Lady. And she only sees Anton at the very end of the movie. And he kills her, right? Everybody remembers that part. But what I always found strange, even in the first viewing, was how when she sees Anton sitting in that room, she immediately figures everything out. She knows he's Anton and he's going to kill her, which is weird, right? Because up to this point, she's supposedly never seen Anton. So, a normal reaction would be like, "Oh, sorry, sir. Um, who are you?" Or, "I'm here to rent this Airbnb. Um, are you the are you the landlord?" You know, something like that. But just to immediately jump to, "Oh, I just figured everything out. You are the murderer." That doesn't make much sense. Then it it would be sloppy writing from the Cohen brothers to to do that because it it makes it more dramatic or whatever. So what likely happened if my theory is correct is that this entire time Lady is slowly starting to suspect that Tom Bell is Anton because he acts weird. Like, why is this guy telling me about this device that can kill and leave no evidence? Or why is this guy so invested? Why is he in Vegas? Um, she starts piecing together. How come every time I tell Tom Bell where Lannne or whatever his name is is, Anton is on his ass, right? So, she probably already had like that gut feeling, was already slowly piecing it together. So, when she goes to her safe house or whatever this is, and sees Tom Bell, sees Tom Bell sitting there in the in the room, that seals it for her. She immediately knows everything. She knows Tom Bell is the murderer, and she knows she's [ __ ] dead.
As a side note, like why kill her now this late into it? Why not just immediately kill her or whatever? My theory is that throughout the movie, Tom Bell is still having like this internal conflict with himself where he still occasionally feels bad for what he's doing or whatever. And at the end when he kills her, that's like that's it. He's all in on Anton because she symbolizes like innocence and she even challenges him and stands up to him on his little two-faced coin thing which you know he respects, right? So it this scene is made out to be like it was a hard kill for him like even for him and that's probably what like the injury you know that the movie ends with represents like he's he was injured by you know taking that last plunge. But anyway, um there's a bunch of other things that I'm not going to cover in this video, but the the last one I will cover is this Anton is a ghost thing. So, in the movie, Tom Bell refers to Anton as a ghost. None of that explains your man, though. Uh he's just a goddamn homicidal lunatic yet, Tom. I'm not sure he's a lunatic. Yeah. Well, what would you call him? Yeah, sometimes I think he's pretty much a ghost, which yeah, you know, you can say, "Oh, that's because he's so elusive or whatever, which he's not just elusive, like people don't even know what he looks like." Okay, so which is required for this theory to be true, right? This whole theory could have been shattered if like he like Anton was hard to catch and follow and all that but they knew what he looked like. Right then there my whole my whole theory is again shattered. But again like all these things that are simple that are common that would by themselves shatter this theory are not there. Right? So, they have to do the whole he's a ghost thing. Not just in reference to he's hard to catch, but they don't even know what he looks like. They don't know anything about him. It's like he doesn't even exist. And not just in the movie, but I don't remember where I read or heard or saw this, but maybe someone out there can post the link. But someone that worked on the movie, either one of the Cohen brothers or someone else, in some interview, I think it was, was talking about how Anton is supposed to be like a ghost that doesn't exist and that that's why they have him with that haircut he has and that they made up his last name. Like his last name was made up for the movie so that you can't derive an origin from his last name like something along those lines. So, so he's a ghost, whatever that means.
Hey guys, so quick update. Um, this video was recorded about a year ago and literally in the middle of me editing this video, I discovered that yes, um, my theory is shattered. But I'm still uploading anyway because it might still be found to be entertaining or thoughtprovoking or whatever. But anyway, what happened was in the middle of my editing, my wife correctly pointed out that the character of Tom Bell is often seen wearing a big hat, whereas the Anton character is literally never seen wearing a hat. So, I mean, I hope it was still enjoyable to you nonetheless. And um I guess that's it. Thanks for watching.