Films like "Fargo" are why I love the movies, said Roger Ebert.

Rating: 10/10 (6 October 2009)

"Films like "Fargo" are why I love the movies", said Roger Ebert. The film-makers Joel and Ethan Coen, the writing/directing team also known as Two Headed Director, are the reason why I believe in the modern movie-making. To take the story like the one Fargo is based on which has been told so many times before and, I am sure, will be told over and over again, to turn and twist it in the most in-anticipated ways, to create the characters so alive and three dimensional that you believe every word they say and every step they take, to provide them with some of the best quotes and dialogs I've ever had pleasure to hear, to mix dry humor and humanity, to make the film recognizable but uniquely beautiful, dark, dramatic, and funny - that's what Coens achieved in Fargo which has been supposedly the Best film they ever made.
All of Coens' fans have their own favorite film but it is hard to disagree that with Fargo, Coens sealed the place in Cinema Hall of Fame. Fargo is a movie of many dimensions. As many of Coens' films, it centers on a botched crime that includes kidnapping gone terribly wrong. Many viewers see it as a dark comical crime/mystery thriller which it is but it is much more. It rises to the high tragedy, and it is one of the most beautiful gentle love stories committed to screen which is very unusual for Coens. What I especially love in Fargo - the perfect balance between the scenes of building suspense, graphic violence, humor, and the real drama from the lives of the real people.
The visual palette of the film with color white dominating the screen is stunning, and the snow that covers American Midwest for what seems the eternal winter, is as important character for the film as the rest of them. The sorrowful music score deserves a special mention for creating the mood.
It has been told a lot about dream cast that Coens gathered for the film. Of all stars, Frances McDormand and William H. Macy got the most recognition, and very deservingly so. Macy is amazing and a spot- on, and in the final scene of the film, genuinely heartbreaking. It is impossible to imagine anybody else in the role of Jerry Lundegaard, the desperate man who came up with the perfect scheme to become rich without hurting anyone and whose good intentions paved the road directly to hell of Shakespearean proportions. Macy was determined from the beginning that it was HIS role in spite Coens' doubts even after the second reading. He did not hesitate to beg them, and the result proved absolutely terrific.
Any way we look at Fargo, it is a great work of Cinema that would make it difficult for its creators to overpass its perfection. As a true masterpiece, it only gets better as time passes and it turns with new facets with every new viewing.