A Cold-Blooded Comedy of Errors

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2016)

"Raising Arizona" filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen have surpassed themselves again with their idiosyncratic dramedy thriller "Fargo" about a gallery of memorable characters. A pregnant female police chief investigates a strange kidnapping case and tracks down a pair of ruthless killers and the Minneapolis automobile salesman who hired them. He learns about these two reprobates from a mechanic at the car dealership where he works. Like all first-class Coen brothers' movies, this police procedural operates on two levels and boasts not only eccentric characters but also outlandish predicaments. The use of an unlikely lady police chief, Frances McDormand, who stands in for the standard-issue male protagonist, sets this superior, often satirical crime saga apart from most entries in the genre. Incidentally, McDormand took home an Oscar for Best Actress as Marge Gunderson. Furthermore, the Coens shared the Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. Although it won only two Oscars, "Fargo" received nominations for Best Picture, Best Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing." "Fargo" unfolds with an amusing preamble: "THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred." Of course, most of what happens here is strictly illusory. Like most Hollywood movies, "Fargo" is a synthesis of the real and the imaginary. In the article "Rewind: What Part Of 'Based On' Don't You Understand?" author Karl Heitmueller wrote: "Joel Cohen told 'Time Out' that 'if an audience believes that something's based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept.'" Heitmueller classifies "Fargo" and other movies, like "Ray" and "Gangs of New York" as BOATS movies. According to Heitmueller, "A BOATS movie is not a documentary, and while watching one we should be smart enough to take everything we see in it with a big ol' grain of popcorn salt. The problem seems to be that audiences often overlook the words "based on." It's not Hollywood's fault that, amazingly, many people just don't question what's presented in a BOATS movie — that moviegoers don't stop to consider that it's impossible to know exactly what happened on the doomed fishing boat the Andrea Gale in "The Perfect Storm." The contrived plot involves a cash starved car salesman, Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macey of "The Cooler"), who hires a couple of lowlife criminals, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi of "Con-Air") and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare of "The Big Lebowski") to kidnap his ditzy wife, Jean Lundegaard (Kristin Rudrüd of "Drop Dead Gorgeous"), whose kidnapping scene is hilarious. Jean gets wrapped up in a shower curtain and scrambles about her house in desperation to escape them. Meantime, Jerry hopes that he can force his gruff father-in-law, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell of "Saving Private Ryan"), who owns the car dealership where Jerry works, to pay the ransom. The father-in-law isn't happy about the arrangement. He would rather hand over the loot to the kidnappers than entrust Jerry with the cash. Indeed, scheming Jerry plans to split the loot between the three of them. Ultimately, Marge investigates, tracking down leads, and questions Jerry. Naturally, everything turns into a comedy of errors, and nothing works out for either the desperate car salesman or his paid abductors. Marge proves that he is no pushover when he wields her service revolver. She drops Garear in his tracks when he tries to run from her. Ace British lenser Roger Deakins' cinematography is a pleasure to behold, and he captures the grim setting of North Dakota with its snow-swept terrain. Some of the violence is brutal. When the two kidnappers are pulled over by a state trooper, Gaear shoots him in the head and blood bubbles out of his head like a fountain. The dry dialogue that everybody delivers is interesting, too. "Fargo" has thus far spawned two made-for-television shows just as bogus as the movie "Fargo." Produced for $7 million, this Coen brothers release generated over $60 million at the box office, making it a fabulously successful movie.