Keanu Reeves has an iconic comedy film that has a strange connection to one of the greatest Western movies of the 21st century. Reeves has starred in a lot of very popular movies in different genres, but one genre he hasn’t had success in is the Western. He only appeared in one Western, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, in 1993.
While his John Wick movies borrow heavily from Westerns, on top of Samurai tropes, it isn’t a genre that he has ever fit into. That said, Reeves has been in a lot of comedies over his career, and one of his most popular franchises has a connection to the Western that was named one of the best ever released in the 21st century.
No Country For Old Men Has A Fun Connection To Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
When looking at No Country for Old Men and Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of comparisons between them. No Country for Old Men is a film about a hired killer trying to retrieve drug money that ends up in the hands of a man in a small rural town. The body count is high, and it’s extremely violent.
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is the sequel to Keanu Reeves’s breakout, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. After the first movie showed the slackers trying to pass a history project in high school using time travel, the second showed them attempting to fulfill their destiny by writing the song that would bring the world together.
One movie was about nihilistic violence, and the other was about hope for a bright future. However, both films did feature death, and the idea of death in each movie came from the exact same inspiration. Both releases patterned their themes of death from the Ingmar Bergman classic, The Seventh Seal.
The Seventh Seal is about a knight returning from the Crusades and wanting to get back home to see his wife one more time before he dies. It’s the bubonic plague that is killing everyone, and the knight makes a deal with Death to play chess for his life. As long as they play, he will remain alive as he travels back home.
Death in The Seventh Seal is played by Bengt Ekerot, and he’s portrayed as a white-faced man, wearing a long black hooded cloak, who loves to play games. When Bill and Ted die in their sequel, they make a deal with Death to return to life if they beat him at games. Death, played here by William Sadler, looks exactly the same as the character from The Seventh Seal.
The theme of playing games to win life back was also in both movies. This leads to No Country for Old Men, where Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is the personification of death. The Coen Brothers even reference The Seventh Seal in their script more than once, showing this was their influence.
Woody Harrelson’s Carson Wells says that Anton Chigurh is the “bubonic plague,” directly referencing the cause of death in The Seventh Seal. Chigurh doesn’t technically play games, but he does offer the coin flip to determine deaths, making them a thing of chance.
Both Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey and No Country for Old Men use Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal as an inspiration for their takes on death. While the comedy offers a direct copy of the character, the Coen Brothers’ Western relies on the themes to deliver the message, but both honor this Swedish masterpiece.
Keanu Reeves’s John Wick Also Fits Anton Chigurh’s Ideal Of An Unstoppable Killer
While the Keanu Reeves movie that references Death from The Seventh Seal is a straight comedy, Reeves also played a character who shares a lot in common with Anton Chigurh. Both men are forces of death, and when they’re summoned, there’s no chance for anyone to survive.
While Anton was referred to as the “bubonic plague,” delivering death to wherever he arrives, John Wick is a man who will kill anyone and everyone who gets in his way as he exacts vengeance for the wrongs against him. John Wick has a much higher kill count than Chigurh (at least in the movie), and no one survives when Wick has them in his sights.
Of course, there are differences, as John Wick is a force of vengeance, and Anton Chigurh is simply a weapon of destruction, often senseless, as he kills even the innocent if the coin flips right. However, both men deliver death on a massive level, and both are forces that will send a person to the afterlife without a second thought.
No Country For Old Men Was Named One Of The 21st Century’s 10 Best Films
While Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is a cult classic, it will never be considered a “great movie,” despite its large fanbase. The same can’t be said for The Seventh Seal and No Country for Old Men. The Seventh Seal is a masterpiece and one of Bergman’s greatest films, which says a lot, considering his legendary career.
While No Country for Old Men might be a newer movie, only released two decades ago, it has already achieved legendary status. After taking a poll of industry professionals, the New York Times listed No Country for Old Men in the top 10 of the best movies of the 21st century so far.