Lester + Sheriff Mooney

I just thought of a few more reasons that indicated to me that the sheriff was Lester....

The sheriff asks Clay if he was going out with Amanda and says something to him that he should...
Then when they find her dead, he responds that she wasn't an upstanding citizen...

Later on, Lester says to Clay that 'some people need killing"...

In the end, when Clay is packing up his truck to move, there's that photo of him with Mooney..a little remembrance of their relationship.

I think Sheriff was Lester and was cleaning up society of those that he thought needing killing..

Does that makes sense??? As I said in my previous post, I came into this movie about 1/2 hour late..so I don't have any idea what happened in the beginning. I turned it on when Amanda shot the woman that Clay was in bed with.

And of course, if the Sheriff WAS Lester, this would explain why Clay was so reluctant to reveal who the killer was..after all, who was he going to go to?


Additionally, wasn't the character that others called 'the horse trainer' in the end, these same person that was 'sheriff mooney'?

There's NO horse trainer listed in the credits..

Well, that's an interesting reading, but unfortunately, the film doesn't support your theory.

For example, Lester is a truck driver. We see him at a truck yard, and later at a shipping office talking to a secretary. Sheriff Mooney couldn't hold two jobs, one which requires him to basically stay in the county, and the other requires him to travel all over the country.

Also, it's unlikely that Amanda would have picked up Sheriff Mooney in a bar.

Or that Kimberley (the waitress that Clay used to babysit) would have acted like she'd "just" met this handsome stranger... and agreed to go out to the lake with him...

Or, as someone else mentioned, that Agent Shelby would have acted like she'd never met him in the bar at the end.

While it's possible to say, "Yeah, he was acting different, so they treated him like a new person", the end clinches the deal. Lester shows up, orders a strawberry shake -- and gets it. It's real. His interaction with the counterman is real. When Clay and Lester leave, Sheriff Mooney pulls up. If Lester is Sheriff Mooney's alter ego, he can't have been in the diner, and then pulling up in a truck soon after.

Nice theory though. You might enjoy "A Scanner Darkly" by Phillip K. Dick. It's about an undercover narcotics agent named Fred who's chasing a notorious drug dealer named Bob. It has a similar theme.

in the start i thought lester was clay's alter ego, and it reminded me of Fight Club, 'cause in fight club you could se Pitt's character talking to people and he still was in Tyler Durden's mind... but when i saw lester with that FBI woman i knew it couldnt be like that, because clay wasn't around...

BTW i think that theory is silly, but i understand how you migth have thought so if you missed parts of the movie:)

What have you been smoking?

I can see where you're coming from - it's an interesting theory, and made me think, which is always a good thing. Lester & Mooney both wear white hats, both smoke cigarettes, both talk about their friendship with Clay (friends standing up for each other, taking chances for him, etc), and are never in the same scene together (not even Lester driving past a murder investigation). plus, your theory is quite similar to the plot of the Jim Thompson novel (a great pulp fiction writer) "The Killer Inside Me" (the sheriff talks about killing as a "sickness", similar to the way Lester describes his need to kill).

interesting theory, but no. You've omitted key scenes - Amanda sleeping with Lester, Lester talking to his secretary at the trucking office, Lester asking Clay to report the body from the lake, and then he reports the body to Mooney (granted, we the scene cuts to Clay & Mooney at the lake, so he could have reported it to Barney). Talking to Kimberley at the diner, Lester asks if she and Clay are already acquainted - in this small town, the sheriff would've already know that (being a friend of Clay, and long time local). At the lake, Kimberly asks Lester where he's from - as the sheriff, she certainly would have seen him around town before. and best of all, in the bar scene Lester introduces himself as Lloyd to Agent Shelby, and she says "nice to meet you Lloyd", even though she already knows the sheriff as Dan Mooney.

fercrissakes, Lester was Lester. No one else was Lester and Lester wasn't anyone else. Get over this split personality nonsense already.

Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...

wdflwr, Instead of Lester as alter ego to Moony a la Fight Club, Lester and Moony are separate people but direct foils of each other. See http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/211951/foil

You almost got it. They have to be separate because Clay ultimately sees them together as separate. The beauty of the ending is the full circle resolution of the ultimate good taking complete control of the ultimate evil. Moony is the benevolent father figure finally stepping in to correct someone else's son gone bad. Moony even has a warm heart for Amanda until pressed to see her realistically.

Moony and Lester are equally complex, which gives even more dimension to both, as separate individuals. That is how foils as a literary device deepen a story's meaning.

And good on this film to entertain on so many levels. The timing between contrasting elements is so balanced, worthy of study. The alternating happy goofy music to the campy discordant music is one example. The super cool professional co-agent to Shelby contrasted with the goober deputy to Moony is another example. Foils again.

Foils are often similar in many ways but different in one key way. Lester and Moony both use very nurturing tones with people, but Moony's sincerity serves to repel us even more by Lester's slick facade.