Not your average cops and robbers movie!

Rating: 9/10 (29 July 2003)

Having heard of the movie and it's Oscar success, but never known anything about it, I watched with an unusual lack of preconception. I didn't really know any of the actors by name, although many I do recognise visually and that probably helped me keep an open mind. If Meryl Streep played the lead then somehow I would have expected something specific, but in this case what emerged from my TV was a real curiosity and a darkly charming one! It's an apparently serious film but laced with some wickedly dark comedy and tongue-in-cheek sequences. The characters are great,they have depth and human interest, even the silent hit man! The acting is naturalistic and deadpan, the casting is spot-on perfect. Despite several huge shocks along the way the fairly simple and uncomplicated plot moves quickly and effortlessly to a rather satisfactory conclusion.In many ways thats a surprise in itself and yet at no time is this a flashy or overboard piece of movie making,it's restrained and controlled, and all the better for it.And it's great entertainment. A credit to all involved. The opening shot of a car approaching in a near white-out sets up the snow-bound feel of the movie. The bleak, frozen wastes of Minnesota have a slightly other-worldy aura about them which adds immeasurabley to the overall atmosphere. The towns of Fargo and Brainard in winter seem like frontier outposts and the action which follows has a strong Western overtones. Frances McDormand is quite brilliant as the pregnant local police chief, Marge, with a home-life so prosaic and a delivery so earnest that you swear you must have met this woman somewhere yourself! Her ability to be funny without apparently trying is such a refreshing change from the "Friends" style of comedy (say your line, pull a face and wait for the laugh before resuming)that now riddles Hollywood. And her dialogue is brilliantly written. The peculiarities of the Minnesota accent where it seems everyone has a Scandinavian name and says "oh yahh" are played to the hilt (sorry to any residents reading this if I sell your state short, I'm from England so please forgive my lack of background knowledge). The scene in which Marge interviews two hookers amid a chorus of "ohh yahhh"s is hilarious. Only one thing in the script annoyed me, the constant and repeated reference by one character to another by their names. How many times did the Brainard cop, who discovers the initial dead bodies, call his chief "Margie" ? In Every single line, virtually. That was the only flaw. In real life people on familiar everyday terms don't keep using each other's names in that way. It's a trick straight out of bad soap-opera where the idea is to make the viewer remember who everyone amid the cast of hundreds actually is. Otherwise this was a brilliantly written, acted, directed and photographed movie. If you havn't seen it, rest assured it's not at all what you are expecting!