An exquisite example of superior film making

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 2013)

Fargo is a film a film by the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen. The film is about the a very simple crime going horribly wrong. The film opens with Jerry Lundegaard, played by William H. Macy, entering into an arrangement with Carl Showalter, played by Steve Buscemi, and Gaear Grimsrud, played by Peter Stormare. The arrangement is for Carl and Gaear to abduct Jerry's wife, Jean, and hold her for ransom. The deal is supposed to involve no violence, and they are told they will get $40,000 in addition to a brand new vehicle. This should be a fairly simple plan, as Jean's father clearly has the means to pay the ransom, but this simple plan goes horribly wrong.
This movie, as almost all, has multiple themes. Jerry's problems all develop due to his spinelessness, ineffectiveness, and general inability to appreciate the consequences of his actions. One of the themes of the film is that there are consequences of hiding sin. Jerry has a serious embezzling problem, and frankly it is never explained where he is spending this enormous sum of money. The movie elaborate that he is in immediate need of at least $320,000 due to GMAC discovering money he stole. Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he constructs this insane plan to have Carl and Gaear kidnap his wife and hold her hostage to get his father-in-law's money. Jerry is so ineffective that he doesn't even show up on-time for his meeting with Carl and Gaear. Instead of admitting to his father-in-law that he stole $320,000, he tries to arrange a real-estate deal with him. Instead of planning through this business deal properly, his father-in-law assumes Jerry just wants a finder's fee for bringing the deal to him. This is further proof of Jerry's extreme spinelessness and ineptness Jerry is so incompetent that he fails to talk his father out of dropping off the money to the kidnappers. This is a disastrous consequence that results from the fact that he is concealing the theft of the money and his plan to cover up the theft. Jerry's entire plan for the crime was to take $1 million from his father-in-law, and give the kidnappers he hired $80,000. This idea is completely ruined when his father-in-law takes the money to the kidnappers instead of Jerry. Jerry further causes pain by ineptly allowing Wade to go through with this. The consequence of this is that Wade is killed by Carl, and an innocent parking lot attendant. These are direct consequences of Jerry being a bungling fool.
The further theme of the film is that sin quickly escalates into greater sin. Carl and Gaear are engaged in the crime of kidnapping Jerry's wife, and they quickly escalate this. The initial choice to take part in this evil activity causes a state trooper to stop them. Gaear then kills the state trooper, but there are witnesses to this that unluckily decided to drive by at the wrong time. Gaear then kills those witnesses. Thus, what starts as a simple non-violent abduction turns into a triple homicide. This is just the beginning of the cycle. The triple homicide creates further despair when Carl kills Wade and the parking lot attendant. This shows the continuing cycle of crime creating more crime. The cycle continues when Gaear kills Jerry's wife and Carl. This cycle of crime creating more crime doesn't stop until Marge, a police officer, confronts Gaear as he is stuffing Carl into a wood chipper.
Overall, this film is quite strong. It shows a superior effort went into the film. It is very effective at conveying its message. It is well directed, well edited, and highly effective. On the negative side, I question the point of hiding Jerry's motive for stealing all of this money. Explaining his scheme to steal money from GMAC would also be appreciated. This film is only 98 minutes long, and thus, has more than sufficient time to explain Jerry's motive for stealing this money. I do not see how this helps accomplish the film's ultimate intent. Other than that, I would say it is a very strong film. Overall, I would rate it a 9 out of 10.