i'll just admit it. look. im an arthouse film fan just as much as the next person but i saw all the hype around this film and went into it expecting a perfectly crafted thriller. i was disappointed by how abrupt the movie ended. see. i like bleak endings but only when they have some thematic sense or poetic or ironic or have some grandness or whatever.

first half was pretty good, the tension and everything. llewelyn was a badass, and i fully expected him to finally beat anton's ass. i understand the path the director wanted to go in and appreciate it, but i still don't like it. personally, i would have made it like this. anton's worldview is shaken when llewelyn fights back in the gunfight. he has never let a target escape. he decides to do a coin flip beforehand and decides to ask llewelyn before killing him. anton kills carla because he had given his word to llewelyn just like in the movie where she doesn't call the toss, but llewelyn doesn't know yet. anton hunts down llewelyn and holds him at gunpoint and asks him to call for the coin toss he had done before. llewelyn says heads, and it turns out anton lost. he reluctantly spares a wounded llewelyn and leaves. llewelyn comes home and finds carla dead. realizing anton had killed her, llewelyn swears revenge as he gets ready by loading his gun and a shot of the coin implying anton cannot kill llewelyn because he abides by the coin's rule and he has no means to defend himself hence implying his inevitable death. it ends right there.

having anton bound by his own twisted rule and losing the toss creates that poetic, ironic bleakness. anton's supernatural "aura" is kinda dented because fate (represented by the coin) forces him to spare a man he so desperately wants to kill. that closing shot of llewelyn loading his gun next to the coin flips the dynamic: anton spared him, but llewelyn won't stop until anton is dead, leaving the audience with the haunting realization that llewelyn is walking into a trap or an unwinnable war because hes outmatched.

the ending will prob gives the satisfaction of llewelyn surviving and outsmarting anton through sheer grit, satisfying that "badass" expectation a lot of ppl had for him, but it doesn't give us a clean hollywood happy ending because carla still ends up dying and lleweln has to live with the grief.

Sure. You are better at this than Cormac McCarthy, and both Coen brothers as well.

Congratulations!

Please let me know when your next book is coming out! I want to get on the list.....for a ticket out of town.

I actually like the idea of giving Anton a moment where his own belief in fate turns against him. The problem is that it changes one of the core ideas of the original: Anton isn't supposed to be some supernatural force who can be defeated by playing his own game better. Still, as an alternate ending, having Llewelyn survive the coin toss only to realize Carla Jean is dead and go after Anton would give you that poetic irony without turning it into a conventional happy ending.

Curious what you thought the ending they shot meant

This feels like bait.

I wouldn't worry about it.

If the movie had gone with OP's ending, it might have even won the Oscar for Best Picture! Oh, what could have been!

Movies aren’t for everyone

Clown

“It’s just a bunch of old men talking.” - stupid people

I mean if you want a bittersweet ending similar to this just watch Hell or High Water. Even has a similar setting and vibe.

Have you read ... the name of the movie...? This may inform the ending for you. It's not a big fn mystery