An Excellent Crime Drama/Black Comedy and One Of The Greatest Films Ever Made. A Mesmerising Classic Masterpiece Of Cinema From The Coen Brothers.

Rating: 10/10 (26 June 2013)

Fargo is one of the greatest films ever made,a Classic Masterpiece of cinema that mixes Crime Drama and Black Comedy. Filled with brilliant direction,a great cast,a wonderful script,beautiful photography and an unforgettable haunting score,Fargo is The Coen Brothers and filmmaking at it's best.
Set in Minnesota 1987 and Based on a True story,Fargo tells the story of Jerry Lundegaard(William H. Macy),a used car salesman who is now in debt and owes money. Feeling desperate,Jerry hires criminals Carl Showalter(Steve Buscemi)and Gaear Grimsrud(Peter Stormare)to kidnap Jerry's wife Jean Lundegaard(Kristen Ruddrud)for ransom. But when things go wrong and people are killed,Jerry,Carl and Gaear and the killings are being investigated by pregnant cop Marge Gunderson(Francis McDormand)and things become more chaotic and out of control.
Fargo is an unforgettable Classic Masterpiece that came out at the right time for The Coen Brothers. After the critical and Box Office failure of their hilarious and underrated big budgeted period Comedy The Hudsucker Proxy,The Coen Brothers decided to return to the low budget roots of their first film Blood Simple and make Fargo an amazing film that was critically acclaimed,won multiple film awards and became one of The Coen Brothers career defining and greatest films. Fargo is one of the reason that cinema and filmmaking is such a great art form because Fargo right from the start gives you a film that will have you glued to the screen with it's themes of greed,death and violence and the themes and film experience for Fargo never loses it's power after the film is over. What also makes Fargo an incredible film is it's great mixture of Crime Drama with Black Comedy mixing serious things like murder and kidnapping and combing it with morbid Humor because The Coens are masters at taking serious things that are not supposed to be funny and making them hilarious. The Black Comedy in this film is very funny,surprising and unexpected whether it's the films characters their dialog or the situations the characters are involved in and the Comedy is original and bleak and you will never look at the Midwest the same way again. The Cinematography by Roger Deakins is beautiful,haunting and effective giving the Midwest and Minessota a great scenery and wide landscape despite all of the truly horrible things going on throughout the film. Deakins amazing and flawless photography also makes the snow and Winter atmosphere just come off the screen and when a character is walking in the snow or the cold you as the viewer feel like you are right there in the snow. Marge Gunderson is a great character and maybe one of the greatest and most interesting and fascinating characters in film history because she's so likable and optimistic and loves her job as a cop. You would figure with her being big and pregnant that Marge would take a vacation off but Marge continues to do her job like it's nothing. What I also love about the Marge character is that the film shows two sides of her in the film her personal life as a wife dealing with pregnancy and loving her husband and her professional life as a cop and her professional life comes into play with this film. When the violence and death happen all around under Marge's nose she cannot understand why all of this violence is happening. Marge's optimism view is an interesting contrast to the Horror,danger and violence happening in throughout the film. Marge is another classic creation from The Coen Brothers. The quotable screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen(which won the Oscar for best original screenplay)is outstanding and perfect,with The Coens giving each of the films main characters funny and memorable dialog and using Minnesota language and dialect/accents and words like yeah(or 'Yah')and quotes such as "you betcha" over and over again. Another great screenplay by The Coens. The violence in Fargo is harsh,brutal shocking,disturbing and at times darkly funny and matches the films grim tone and will definitely surprise viewers. The ending of the film sad,disturbing and at the same time hopeful and optimistic especially hopeful for the character Marge. A wonderful ending.
The whole cast in the film is brilliant. Francis McDormand earn a Best Actress Oscar for her excellent performance as Marge Gunderson,with McDormand bring optimism,humor and great depth to the role. A great performance. William H. Macy is wonderful as Jerry Lundegaard,a car sales man in debt. Steve Buscemi is fantastic as Carl,a fast talking criminal. Peter Stormare is great and intense as Gaear,Carl's partner that's a man of few words. Harve Presnall is amazing and funny as Wade Gustafson,Jean's Father. Kristin Ruddud(Jean Lundegaard),Larry Brandenburg(Stan Grossman),John Carroll Lynch(Norm Gunderson),Steve Reevis(Shep Proudfoot),Steve Park(Mike Yanagita)and Tony Denman(Scotty Lundegaard)give good performances as well.
The Direction by The Coen Brothers is brilliant and masterful,with The Coens always moving the camera with close-ups,zooms,over head and shooting from the snow filled roads from a distance giving the film beautiful visual style. Great direction by The Coens.
The score by Carter Burwell is amazing,powerful,epic and intense and matches the film's tone and every scene in the film. A mesmerizing score from Burwell.
In final word,if you love The Coen Brothers,Crime Dramas,Black Comedies or films in general,I highly suggest you see Fargo,a brilliant and flawless Classic Masterpiece of cinema that you can watch again and again and deserves to be in any film lover's collection. Highly Recommend. 10/10.