Great story; done as only the Coen's could

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 1999)

I recently watched Fargo for the second time, having watched this film about two years ago. It seemed to me that I liked this film much more the first time. Fargo has the interesting storyline, great direction and superb acting, yet I felt that something was missing. A hA! Could it be a little bit more realism and perhaps a bit longer film.
Regardless of the fact that Frances McDormand played the part very well and even won Best Actress for it, she seemed to play her character too dumb-wittedly. Margie (McDormand's character) seems to be a couple nickels short of a dime and yet manages to solve this murder mystery (albeit a really bungled up one) in what seems like record time. No sooner has she arrived on the scene, than she already knows what happened, when it happened, who was responsible and where to go from there. I've been to Minnesota and North Dakota and the people that live there are not at all like the morons that they are portrayed as in this film.
The length of the movie seemed too short. If Marge had at least pursued the killers for some time, rather than stumbling upon their hideout (also too unbelievable) almost instantly, this film could have been much better. I don't like the way the Coen's wrapped up this film like they were in a hurry and needed to go somewhere.
Other than these problems I really liked the film and never lost attention from it. The story is quite original and leaves you wondering just what is going to happen next. The performances are top notch, especially Steve Buscemi who is humourously always referred to as a "funny-looking-guy in some sort of general way." This film doesn't top Raising Arizona as far as I'm concerned but is still more than worthy of a rental.
8/10 stars.