Okay -- It had the Potential to be Better

Rating: 5/10 (5 August 2006)

After watching Fargo, I was left with the same feeling I felt before I watched it; a need to be entertained. Don't take that the wrong way, the movie entertained me, but those entertaining parts were few and far between. Between what? Well, nothing (Nothing as in bland snow-cast lands) And I'll say the movie was awfully long feeling for only being one and a half hours or so.
The humor of this comedy if mostly created by those over-exaggerated (I hope) accents. And when everybody else is laughing at that and I felt left out. Lucky for you, you're probably in that 'everybody' category.Other parts were entertaining though, a number seemingly useless actions, shots of funny things we all do once in a while and of course, the all superior chit-chat type of humor. Basically the type of humor Steve Buscemi is known for; the kind I like.
But between these glory blessed scenes of humor are a few nice-to-watch action sequences and frankly, quite unentertaining conversations. But where the movie fails the most -- where it could've been made better, is the overall atmosphere. It isn't edgy like 8 Mile or laid-back like Pulp Fiction, it's more along the lines of . . . nothing. Not only that the scenery consists of homey feeling houses and as I said before, snow. Officially, I'm not retiring to Fargo, North Dakota after watching this movie. It seems much too cold and depressing.
And while some of the scenes could have been polished up, sped up, or even cut out, the acting is fairly funny and a few characters are good, while others are bland and bad. Steve Buscemi's Carl is of course my favorite character, and the conflicting pair between him and Grimshrud creates a few good jokes. Shep Proudfoot adds a little spice and Marge the expecting cop is nicely done as well. But the rest of the characters just seem to annoy me, especially Jerry Lundegaard. He appeared very self-centered (as he was meant to), and there was nothing to like about him. But somehow he did'nt seems villainous enough to be the bad guy, leaving him looking like neutral/bland character.
So in the end, it just seems that Fargo has something bad to bring done each good things it has going for it, thus earning it a nice average 5 out of 10. While my friends seemed enjoy it, I nearly killed myself watching it the second time through. So for me, it is more or less not worth a rent.