I"m finishing No County For Old Men and I can’t help but think just how much I love Lewellyn’s character. It seems I’ve never rooted so hard for a character. It got me thinking, why?

Lewellyn isn’t a good guy. He isn’t a hero. Lewellyn is stealing something that isn’t his. He’s prying blood money from a dead guy’s hands.

Lewellyn isn’t portrayed as a generous lover. If anything, his attitude towards Carla Jean is… antiquated, while Carla seems to adore him. This isn’t to say Lewellyn doesn’t love Carla, but he’s not exactly Noah from The Notebook.

Lewellyn doesn’t solve his problems like a Dresden character - with cool smart plans and elaborate attacks that make you think, “oh shit that was smart and badass!” On the contrary, Lewellyn comes across as one-track-minded and even confrontational, leaving you thinking, “are you sure about this Lewellyn?”

With all this in mind, I think Lewellyn is so likable simply because Cormac puts you alongside Lewellyn like a police ride-along. This guy seems to know what he’s doing and it hasn’t killed him…yet. I’m here for it and I can’t get out now.

So okay… let’s go to this shoddy motel. Show me how to dress this shotgun up. Let’s fix up this room to be ready for an intruder.

The calm weightlessness Lewellyn feels when he holds a gun on Chigurh gave me goosebumps and is something many of us have felt before.

Cormac also makes us wait on Lewellyn in a way where we don’t know what will happen next and we aren’t allowed to ask. We wait with Lewellyn in a quiet empty desert basin all night where you can only wonder, “what are we doing here again?”

I think the reason I end up liking Lewellyn so much is because during this ride-along when i’m thinking, “actually, I’d do it this way” and right when I want to say, “I think maybe we should go th-” Lewellyn veers off and takes us where he thinks we should go. And he’s willing to die for that decision while I am not.

Anyone else feel this way toward Lewellyn?