Not A True Story...Just Very Depressing

Rating: 3/10 (31 August 2009)

My lack of enjoyment for this much-beloved murder-comedy story may have something to do with the complete disconnect I get reading positive reviews posted here. They talk about its great humor, its strong sense of place, and the tough way it deals with bad things people really do.
I watch this movie and just feel miserable. Not so much with the story on screen, but with "Fargo's" enormous popularity.
Minnesota car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) needs a lot of money. He decides on a plan to have his wife kidnapped so that her wealthy father will pay a million-dollar ransom. He offers the kidnappers, a pair of lowlife goons, $40,000 by pretending its half of a much lower ransom demand. All this comes apart when one of the goons gets trigger-happy on their way back from the wife-snatching, and Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) gets the call.
People liken the humor in "Fargo" to that of "Goodfellas", except in "Goodfellas" the people getting hurt and killed are guys who chose their "kill-or-be-killed" line of work. Here, the kidnapping and later deaths are treated as a kind of goof, to be larked over by Marge and the other cops. Tragedy becomes a kind of cynical shorthand for audience merriment. For example, the kidnapped mother's poor son is only glimpsed teary-eyed in one scene after the crime so the directors can make the point of his lame musical interests - Whitesnake and accordions.
The comedies of Joel and Ethan Coen often deal in broad caricature with a regional slant. "Raising Arizona" used the Southwest United States, "O Brother Where Art Thou" the Deep South; both to great effect. Yet here the depictions of the Northwestern people (Minnesota, not North Dakota, is the central setting; Dakotans may be grateful the Coens are not from there) border on the bovine. Big cow-faced people chew disgusting amounts of starches and red meat while talking in monosyllables about the weather and little else. "Yah", "Yah betcha", "Doncha know" and so on permeate their dialogue until the point of their basic moronity is hammered home.
One wonders if this is what makes the film comedic to so many: How could you care about people like this being murdered? They're barely alive now! I actually have less of a problem watching the murders - which to be fair to the Coens are not shot in an exploitative manner - than some of the casual dialogue scenes. The Coens as writers seem to enjoy creating one miserably painful conversation after another, using Larry David-style morbid embarrassment as its ultimate purpose, such as Marge's pointless meeting with an old high-school flame or Lundegaard getting the shaft from his too-nasty-to-be-true father-in-law.
"This could work out real well for me and Jean and Scottie", Lundegaard tells the old man at one point, trying to sell him on a loan.
"Jean and Scottie never have to worry," the father-in-law growls.
To say this film is morally repulsive and insulting to Minnesotans is not to deny its funny or interesting in places, once you make an effort to accept where its coming from. Watching the lowlife crooks (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) argue about pancakes is kind of fun, and certain scenes work in a low-key way. The camera-work by Roger Deakins captures the grimness early American settlers talked so despondently about, where horizon lines are lost between whited-out land and sky.
But this 98-minute film with seven murders feels more to me like the Donner Party running on real time. I know people enjoy this film, but man I don't know if I'd feel worse knowing why.