Excellent acting, but smugness hangs over the whole thing like a frosty pall

Rating: 6/10 (8 July 2001)

Minnesota car-dealer arranges to have his wife kidnapped in order to get his hands on his father-in-law's money, but the plan goes awry. Another blood-soaked black comedy from the Coen Brothers (Joel directed, and he and Ethan wrote the screenplay from a "true story", which won them Oscars). Frances McDormand, William H. Macy (in a star-making performance) and nearly everyone else in the cast give funny, credible and memorable performances, but the film itself is wobbly (purposefully, yet often irritatingly so), padded, and at times brutal--but nearly always undermined by a quasi-comedic tone which is both tiresome and tasteless. Despite strong scenes, it is over-scaled and cut very broadly, and cannot escape the Coens' penchant for self-reverence. **1/2 from ****