adgy-san
PJ Harvey is God
I disagree with pretty much everything in this post.
*SPOILERS*
The character of Ed Tom Bell was absolutely pivotal to the theme of the movie. In his visit to Ellis towards the end of the film, Ellis tells him "You can?t stop what?s coming. It ain?t all waiting on you. That?s vanity." That's the message Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers were conveying - sometimes, the forces of good just can't prevent what's coming. A harsh realization that Bell gradually comes to realize, and this brutal truth is summed up in the closing lines "And then I woke up."
I didn't get that being the theme so much myself. It seemed to me that the theme of the film was the same as the title of it. That the world is not a place for older men anymore, men of that previous generation. They don't understand it because people are different now and things like honor and trust are not things you can count on in people.
After I thought about it for a good long while and then saw the movie a second time, the ending made much more sense in that context. To me, at least.