Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) – No County For Old Men (2007)
There’s no mistaking Chigurh. With his pudding-bowl haircut, waxen pallor and burning stare, you really wouldn’t want to get into a conversation with him.
And you certainly wouldn’t want to know why he’s carrying around a gas cylinder, which is attached to a tube that he’s pointing at your head.
And if he asks you to call a coin toss, whatever you do – get it right.
Practical hair – 7
Calmness – 10
Artillery – 10
Has to put up or shut up with...
Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) – The Big Lebowski (1998)
Things haven’t been so great for Walter since ’Nam. The wife’s left him, he can’t be sure the bowling team share his dedication for the cause, and those anger management issues are getting worse.
Why won’t people just obey the rules? It’s such a world of nihilists he’s living in now, folk don’t even have an ethos.
But one thing’s for sure. If they try to cross Walter, they’ll be entering world of pain.
Practical hair – 10
Calmness – 0
Artillery – 8
Let battle commence...
Walter is at the Laundromat, getting his dirty undies cleaned, when Chigurh challenges him to a coin toss.
A game of chance: just like ’Nam. Walter accepts.
Chirgurh tosses, Walter calls: heads.
It lands, slightly askew on a pair of undies: tails.
Chigurh gives an almost imperceptible shake of the head and raises the tube of his cattle gun to Walter’s head.
Walter swats it to one side and wags a finger at Chigurh: the coin didn’t land straight, so the toss is void.
Chigurh glares and calmly tries to position the tube into a killing position.
Walter, starting to rant about respecting the rules, pulls a gun. Stand-off. The two men go eyeball to eyeball.
Eventually, Chigurh relents with a bow, scoops up the coin and tosses again. Walter makes the same call. It lands cleanly: heads.
Chigurh gives Walter a sardonic look and begins to walk away. But Walter, who has fundamentally misunderstood the rules of this game, takes that as permission... He unloads his piece into the back of that pudding-bowl head.
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