Fargo (1996, R)

Directed by Joel Coen

Written by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

Starring Francis MacDormand, Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy

As Reviewed by James Brundage

The Coen brothers have a good track record with dark comedy. Everyone who knows the business knows this. With Raising Arizona, the gave us the funniest chase scene ever captured on celluloid. With Fargo, however, they through their track record with comedy out the window and attempt to be serious.

Well, not really. Fargo still contains an offbeat humor. It still contains a sense of the quirky and strange. However, it takes it into a darker, more insane level.

Fargo, like The Big Lebowski, and Raising Arizona concerns a kidnapping. This kidnapping’s perpetrator is Jerry Lundergard (William H. Macy). The target of the kidnapping is Jean Lundergard. Jerry, a car salesman as dirty as the deals he does, is in debt. He hires a couple of thugs (including Steve Buscemi) to kidnap her. They’re going to be paid out of half of an $80,000 ransom, a ransom which Jerry is telling his father-in-law (who’s paying the ransom) is $1,000,000.

Unfortunately, something goes wrong. When a cop stops the thugs car on the road outside of Brainard, he is shot and killed, along with two innocent people who witnessed the murder. The thugs demand the full $80,000, and tensions start to develop. The smart Chief of police of Brainard, Marge (Frances MacDormand) is brought in to investigate the murders and we have the makings of an intelligent mystery.

Taking its cue to generate humor on the Minnesota accent, the film is dotted with it’s famous (or perhaps now infamous) line of “yah”, which almost every character says at least once. The profanity, as characteristic of the area, is also low.

Also, the Coens create one of the most startling works of imagery done in recent years. Using the snow as a symbol for both a moral and physical bleakness (this was also used by their friend Sam Ramni in A Simple Plan), the entire movie is set in the winter of Minnesota and North Dakota, an area startling cold as anyone who’s ever been there can tell you. The characters seem to be as cold as their environment. Also, in another feat of imagery, the statue of Paul Bunyan in Brainard is often displayed in a film noir aspect: it is lit from below and shown at night to be a menacing item. The entire film has an aura of cruelty about it.

In fact, cruelty seems to be its point. Not being cruel to us, but proving how bad cruelty is. It displays its openly essayistic point a little too blaringly at the end… although moral ambiguity dots this film, no one can misinterpret the message.

That is the only fault I can find in this film. The script, although frighteningly odd and not at all part of any conventional formula, is excellent, worthy and winning the Best Original Screenplay award in 1996. The acting is top notch, earning it another Academy Award for Best Actress (Frances MacDormand). The direction is steely. For this excellent film, all I can say is I have no other complaints.