It was all going so nicely...

Rating: 7/10 (3 September 2002)

This film is a fine, fine, piece of cinema from a couple of the neatest, slickest and most original directors in the business. Only one thing stops it from claiming its rightful place among the industry's finest - that makes it a great film rather than a classic film - and that's that it's too damn short! Admittedly, it doesn't cut you off with the same degree of frustrating incompletion that, say, 'Unbreakable' does, but to compare the two films at all would be insulting to the Coens. All the same though, the style and quality of the film just makes its brevity all the worse. Frances McDormand turns in one of the finest acting performances of recent years as the just-too-damn-smart detective, and the whole film is staged superbly - the Coen brothers' creation of a very dark movie in a very white setting is slick to the point of arty, but engaging enough to become too over-indulgently picturesque. The film is neat, clipped and wonderfully aesthetic. The comedy is as dark as it comes, but all the same entertaining - you find yourself laughing out loud at stuff you might feel you really shouldn't; it's more of an atmosphere of set-piece humour at times in the film, rather than anything deliberately comic about the script. So hey, maybe I'm being slightly picky about criticising the abrupt end to the film. Maybe it shouldn't really be any longer - perhaps to be longer would be to be make 'Fargo' less well-formed, and that would be unforgivable. I suppose it's just a personal thing - as a tragic product of the MTV generation I was hoping for a more dramatic ending, though the classic 'disposal' scene certainly added a certain uniqueness to the film, though it would be shame if such a fine work were to be remembered for just a woodchipper. Again coming from an MTV-generation point of view, I suppose the one thing this film lacks is a feeling of suspense, an adrenalin rush of some kind. But then a film doesn't need that sort of thrill factor to be good. This is not a film you see if you want the kind of high-octane entertainment that, say, 'Bad Boys' or 'Terminator' will supply. Having said that, I can think of few people who would crack open the beers and watch 'Schindler's List' with a pizza - this is a film treat, an artistic, phenomenally slick and polished work with a well-picked, select cast that features not a single wooden line, and along with McDormand's masterful performance there are fine roles by Buscemi and Macy as the cuss-filled crook and the chirpy-to-the-point-of-irritating loser car salesman who hires him. A great lesson in how to make a film - the plot is very simple, but the way it unravels, as well as the style of the piece as a whole, make Fargo a winner. Watch with a glass of something warming, while in a contemplative, patient mood for best results.