Thanks for posting this, CM. I view the book and film as more than the sum of their parts, and feel enriched for knowing both -- especially for having read the book prior to seeing the film.

There were some scenes the movie wasn't able to pull off (Lewellyn bandying about the outdoor sports store, interrogating the salesman about tent poles at languid pace -- it occupied all of a minute of the movie). There were some moments the movie ran with deftly where the novel swam in detail.

I think Ed Tom's lower profile in the film may account for some viewers' disappointment. In the book his presence is one of a regular commenter, one you wrap your fingers around, trying to make sense of this mess. Film is just a very difficult place to capture that sort of interiority, and the action (and oh! the scenery) becomes the centerpiece. The Coens' work doesn't suffer for it... It's just... different. But this does account for a more distanced relationship to the ending -- one that's tough to shake without having read the book first, from this completely un-objective eye. I agree with everyone who writes that the visit to Ellis' hovel is essential to the story, perhaps the whole point.

I also think that Lewellyn as Vietnam vet and Ed Tom as WWII hero (won't divulge the details for those who haven't read the McCarthy novel) is an angle that is unaddressed in the movie. Again, the story doesn't suffer for it, but this is something revealing for me in the book.