Beautiful illustration of the absence of intelligence in criminals

Rating: 10/10 (30 December 2004)

Evil is interesting. Fargo shows us, in stark terms, the futility of trying to pull of the Perfect Crime. If you study The Darwin Awards or DumbCriminalActs.com, you find that the criminal mind is so arrogant as to think that nothing can go wrong with their "well-laid" plans. And, when an auto sales-manager who thinks his manhood rests solely in how much money he makes, sets out to commit the first violent act of his life, we get a good insight into how everything can go wrong and WILL go wrong. Jerry's plot to kidnap his wife thru surrogates, thwart his father-in-law's overbearing personality, lie to his confederates about the size of the ransom demand and then profit in six-figures all comes to nothing, with a trail of dead bodies that don't immediately point to the real culprit. We learn that Jerry is no smarter or deliberate than any other felon in the big house when we spy him trying to fool GMAC about selling some non-existent cars, then trying to pocket the loan dollars. Jerry's evidently been in the trade awhile and knows better, but he's confident that he can put one over on those dopes at who loan money for a living'(not bloody likely). Now that the GMAC plot is failing, he goes ahead with a much more ambitious and dangerous scheme and let's the petty crooks he met abduct his wife from her home. We wonder if, left alone awhile longer, Jerry might feign madness and machine-gun everyone he knows in order to cover up his earlier sins. It's the honest, steady people in this wicked world who make a positive, lasting contribution to life as we know it. They're represented by Police Chief Margie Gunderson, her loving husband Norm, as well as her local cops, the bartender at the Moose Lodge, etc. My grandparents are all from Fargo & Bismark, and I'm glad that someone finally made a movie where everyone TALKS NORMAL.