Fargo rides again

Rating: 1/10 (1 March 2008)

Almost every review I have read on this movie compares it to Fargo. Now that I have seen it, I know why. It is little more than a remake. They might have named this film Odessa, like the last one was named Fargo, and the next Coen brothers movie will be named after some town in, oh, I don't know, pick a state. And that movie will also explore how innocent people are incapable of comprehending evil, and the moral choices people make, and the two or three other sub-themes that apparently preoccupy the brothers' minds more than they do everyone else's.
Fargo was a great film, and this one might also have been, were it not for the fact that is a rip-off, plain and simple. I have no problem with the way the movie ended, or how it began, or what went on in it. The characters, the setting, the photography were all first rate. It was just so irrelevant. Compounding this major problem were the roles of Woody Harrelson and Tommy Lee Jones. For all the swagger of these two characters, they certainly couldn't have been more ineffectual. What purpose did they serve? One told us how crazy Anton was, and the other told us how senseless he was. Looking back to Fargo, they are reminiscent of the oriental fellow who meets Marge in the Radison coffee shop. An annoying distraction, nothing more.
I was also perturbed by the inconsistency in the nature of the violence. In the beginning of the film, the violence is as graphic as has ever been done. By the end of the film, we are left with the slightest of implications that someone has come to a gruesome demise. Did the filmmakers suddenly develop weak stomachs? Did they run out of novel ways to kill people? Did they run out of fake blood? As for the car accident, well, I think I had stopped trying to understand it by then, so I'll wait to see if someone can clarify that event.
I admire the Coen brothers' talent, but I truly hope they get out of the house between now and their next film, and find a new theme to explore. It wouldn't have to be radically different. Maybe they could look at how innocent people might somehow come to grips with senseless violence, and find a way to deal with it - and not in the usual Hollywood style of heroic vengeance.