ENDORA YOUR ENTHUSIASM (24)
By:
September 24, 2025
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite sympathetic villains. Series edited by Heather Quinlan.
ANTON CHIGURH
The first time we see Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, the 2007 Coen brothers-directed film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name, we see him from behind. Chigurh, a hit man played by Javier Bardem and sporting cinema’s most terrifying man-bob, is being arrested, and we catch a glimpse of his face from the side. In the back of the sheriff’s deputy’s squad car, he is a dark silhouette. At the deputy’s office, he is a blurry figure in the background. It’s not until Chigurh is lying on his back with the deputy lying on his back on top of him as the former strangles the latter to death with his own handcuffs that we really see Chigurh. The camera looms over the two men, moving in for a closer look at Chigurh’s expression as he does what he does best. For the first and last time in the movie, the villain’s face is alive with expression: the ecstasy of murder.
I love Chigurh for reasons I can’t quite explain. Clearly, I have bad taste in men—Chigurh is a parade of red flags, a Rottweiler boyfriend, a “psychopathic killer” another character who is himself a hit man compares to the bubonic plague—but there’s something about his relentless menace and near-spiritual approach to homicide that I find alluring. Chigurh has been hired to track down a missing case with two million dollars in it. But really, he’s an artist. His arsenal is creative: it includes a captive bolt pistol. For him, his work isn’t just a job—it’s personal. This is an antihero on a philosophical quest. The question, it seems, is: Who or what decides who lives and who dies? Chigurh is unknowable, the shadow self personified, and remarkably consistent, as he kills innocent men, not so innocent men, and, well, I don’t want to spoil the ending. If I was dating Chigurh and he told me he was on his way over, I would take him at his word. This is not a guy who’s going to flake. Sure, he might kill me when he arrives, but he’s going to show up. That’s more than you can say for some.
The myth of the homicidal maniac is that he is the one in control. The killer is a man who believes he has wrested destiny from the gods. Chigurh takes a more humble approach to homicide. Sometimes, he lets a coin toss decide the outcome. By surrendering control, Chigurh becomes a tool for something bigger than he is. “If the road you followed brought you to this, of what use was the road?” he asks the fellow hit man, seemingly rhetorically, before murdering him. Good or bad, we’re all on the same road, grimly marching onward to our fate.
ENDORA YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Kathy Biehl on DR. FRANK-N-FURTER | Catherine Christman on ALEXIS CARRINGTON | Crockett Doob on M3GAN | Nick Rumaczyk on AURIC GOLDFINGER | Mariane Cara on MIRANDA PRIESTLY | Trav SD on PROFESSOR HINKLE | Alex Brook Lynn on TOM POWERS | Lynn Peril on ENDORA | Adam McGovern on EDDIE HASKELL | Mimi Lipson on SUE ANN NIVENS | Heather Quinlan on HAROLD SHAND | Tom Nealon on SKELETOR | Matthew Hodge on BARRY LYNDON | Josh Glenn on JOEL CAIRO | Dan Reines on WALTER PECK | Mark Kingwell on HARRY LIME | James Scott Maloy on CLARENCE BODDICKER | Nikhil Singh on LOCUTUS | Carolyn Campbell on CARSON DYLE | Tony Pacitti on DENNIS NEDRY | Gordon Dahlquist on WALKER | Colin Campbell on RUTH LYTTON | Marc Weidenbaum on THE XENOMORPHS | Susannah Breslin on ANTON CHIGURH | Micah Nathan on PATRICK BATEMAN.
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