The ending *spoilers*
Why didn't the Sheriff kill Eli? It was apparent that he was about to help his kidnapper back into the car after he got shot.
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee160/pointbreak67/angelina-jolie-w anted-car-03-1.jpg
The sheriff saw justice done in an "eye for an eye" fashion - someone killed the truck driver, so only one of them needs to die.
shareand in a totally incomprehensible turn of events, does not feel the need to apprehend the other suspect and instead lets him go free????
cemented the films plot below a 4 ranking for me.
I don't think he cared about the Law in that respect. It was my take that he saw himself as a law unto himself. It isn't incomprehensible if you see the event through the character's point of view in that way. I saw nothing ideosynchratic because I already understood his character to be that way.
sharehe may have considered himself a law-unto-himself, this is a rational and comprehensible explanation. However, he still has 2 dead people and a witness to the events; questions will eventually be asked.
It is far too ambiguous for a film to leave such an narrative issue untied at the conclusion of a film, there are way too many implications which arose from the ending which work against the actions of the officer and damage the structure of the story.
I figured that the body and the cop's word would have satisfied them.
shareI didn't find it ambiguous at all. It was even telegraphed at the beginning of the film. The cop says "this is MY road" (or similar).
The trucker was shot in the shoulder, and that's what the cop first did to the kidnapper. Then the trucker died, so he killed the kidnapper. It's a simply minded justice, the kind of justice that a one-cop town is not unaccustomed to I'd say. And it's much more efficient than waiting on the justice system. Unresolved dead bodies? so what, only 10% of murders are ever resolved anyway. Justice was indeed served, and without all the greediness of lawyers!
***So I've seen 4 movies/wk in theatre for a 1/4 century, call me crazy?**
You're right! That's the way I saw it too.
But still bizarre!