Review: Fargo

Set in and around wintery Minnesota, William H. Macy is nerdy, financially troubled Minneapolis car salesman Jerry Lundegaard, who hires two thugs (Irritating motor-mouth Steve Buscemi, surly and near-silent Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife (Kristin Rudrud), hoping that her rich daddy (Harve Presnell) will fork over a ransom of $80,000. The thugs get paid, Macy gets the rest, the wife is safely returned, and nobody has to get hurt. Um, yeah...well, it doesn’t exactly go down like that. In fact, it all gets a bit bloody and murderous. Enter chipper, cluey, pregnant cop Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), to investigate the murders. John Carroll Lynch plays Marge’s homey, laidback husband.

 

Although I liked “The Big Lebowski”, “Blood Simple”, “True Grit”, and to a lesser extent “Intolerable Cruelty”, I am not in any way a Coen Brothers (“Miller’s Crossing”, “The Hudsucker Proxy”, “No Country For Old Men”) fan. I don’t like their style or their skewed vision, I find many of their characters annoying, and most of the actors in their films have done better work outside of their collaborations with the Coens. I didn’t much like this 1996 crime/dark comedy the first time I saw it, and I like it even less now. It’s supremely overrated, deeply unlikeable, intensely irritating, and not at all worthy of the Oscars it was awarded for screenplay, and to Frances McDormand as Best Actress. I understand the film, I just don’t get the appeal of it as entertainment or laudable art.

 

A good place to start would be the film’s ‘True Story’ tag. The Coens later admitted that this was not true at all (though there have been similar real-life cases they may have taken some inspiration from) but a ruse to try and get the viewer to suspend disbelief, apparently. It’s a stupid, infantile and unnecessary decision, if you ask me. I have no problems with films pretending to be true stories (“Blair Witch Project” for instance), but here there was just no reason for it, unless it was to try and hide the fact that this is really just another ‘grisly events in a sleepy, homey town’ story, little different from the rest. Well, it’s probably more boring than most small-town murder investigation stories, so there’s that. Then there’s the characters, the way they act, the way they speak, and how the actors portray them. These people aren’t charmingly folksy, they’re slow and thoroughly obnoxious. The supposedly Minnesotan accents are so wildly exaggerated (at least to this Non-American’s ears) to the point that they all sound like they’re borderline stupid. I loathe the accents in this, and whilst it might seem minor, spending just 100 minutes listening to these irritating, dumb-arse sounding people is 99 minutes too long. And 90% of the dialogue these dorks say is comprised of ‘Yah’, ‘Yep’, ‘Oh yah’, ‘OK, and ‘You Betcha’. Believe me, I’m not exaggerating much.

 

The Coens have written these people as such bad parodies (despite the fact that I think we’re meant to be charmed by them) that it renders some pretty talented actors helpless, forcing them to give insanely annoying, completely caricatured performances. Take William H. Macy, for instance. I love Bill Macy in most other films, but here he totally overpitches his performance, he’s excruciating to watch as he twitches and stutters and sweats profusely. Less is more, Bill. Less is more. It’s amazing that Macy ended up being such a fine actor in subsequent films (notably “Magnolia” and “Pleasantville”), because he’s hideous here. Such a miscalculation is his work that his first scene with McDormand (who is also incredibly irritating) gives the game away totally. I know this is a dark comedy, but it’s just awful to watch Macy squirm and overact so overbearingly and have McDormand act like she’s oblivious to the bleedin’ obvious. The guy’s a nervous wreck, and she’s all like ‘OK den, Thanks fer yer time der fella. Ya have a nice day der, now, OK den?’. I mean, seriously. Who thought this was interesting dialogue in the slightest? Perhaps the scene was meant to be funny, but it hurts the credibility of the actual plot and to a certain extent, that needs to be taken seriously, even in a crime-comedy.

 

The mixture of violence and comedy in the film is also an uneasy one, making me quite squirmy to be honest. None of these people have any intelligence whatsoever, let alone any redeeming qualities whatsoever. And unfortunately, this is a film that is more interested in characters and community flavour than its rather simple crime plot. Great, well how about giving us characters worth spending 100 minutes with, then? The best performances come from Buscemi (who is meant to be an irritating Motor-mouth) and Stormare (Surely the modern Timothy Carey), as the none-too-bright, mismatched kidnappers. They’re pretty freaking dumb and unlikeable, but at least they aren’t insufferably dull.

 

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad if the story actually moved at more than a glacial pace, but this is excruciatingly slow in getting anywhere. And it ends up going just about nowhere, really, at least nowhere enjoyable. It’s fitting then, that the only scene in the entire film that I liked was the scene where McDormand meets up with a lonely and lovelorn high school acquaintance. The scene has nothing to do with anything else in the film, but it’s the only funny scene in the whole film (And it is really funny). It’s everyone else’s least favourite scene, so perhaps it really is just me here. What am I missing, people? Please tell me, I don’t wanna be a Grinch! Meanwhile, the cinematography by Roger Deakins (“The Shawshank Redemption”, “Jarhead”, “No Country For Old Men”) is...er… um...well, there’s lots of snow. He’s fond of snow.

 

I’m sorry, I just despise this insufferable, ugly, unlikeable, bleak, interminable, and massively over-pitched film. This ain’t quirky or original, it’s just an unpleasant and irritating experience. Brother Joel directs, whilst he and Brother Ethan share writing duties. Is this one of the most overrated films of all-time? Ya, sure. You betcha! I know she’s Alaskan, but I sure do betcha Sarah Palin loves this gosh darn film a whole bunch, by jiminy! (Mind you, maybe not. You can’t see Russia from Minnesota, I don’t think...)

 

Rating: D+