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Plot synopsis: The plot centres around Jerry Lundergard (William H.Macy) and his bizarre idea that if he arranges for his wife to be kidnapped he can acquire the relevant monies (via his wealthy Father-In-Law, Wade's ransom payment) to build a parking lot and clear some outstanding debts. Through garage mechanic, Shep Proudfoot, he arranges a meeting with two men who will perform the kidnapping. Unfortunately for Jerry (not to mention a whole bunch of people who end up dead) the two criminals aren't exactly loaded with brains or experience. Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) and Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) make so many dumb mistakes during what has to be the easiest kidnap plot. Right from the off it is clear that these two do not exactly get along with each other, with their constant whining ("I'm f**king hungry now y'know!", "That's a fountain of conversation, man, that's a geyser!").
Things seem to go well up to a point, Jean, Jerry's wife is kidnapped albeit in a hilarious manner, but kidnapped all the same. Unsurprisingly, however, the plan does go terribly wrong. Deaths occur when Carl forgets to put temporary tags on the showroom car Jerry had stolen for them as part of the deal. They get pulled over by a traffic cop for this routine misdemeanour and the cop and two witnesses end up dead. From this point there is no turning back. Blood has been spilt.
Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), the heavily pregnant Brainerd Police Chief, beings her investigations and follows various leads, eventually she interviews Jerry about the possibility of a car having been stolen from the car lot he works at. He acts completely suspicious and unco-operatively, he even flees the interview!
Carl and Gaear take the unfortunate hostage to a deserted log cabin and await the ransom drop. All they're waiting on now is the ransom money and they still have room for more f**k ups. Jerry botches the drop when Wade insists that he go, what with it being his money and his daughter. When he turns up to meet Carl he catches him by surprise. Wade ends up dead and Carl gets shot in the face ("I got f**kin' shot, I got f**kin' shot in the face!"). Carl acquires the money, a heck of a lot more than Jerry had told him. Death toll up to four now. Can things possibly get any worse?
Yeah, they can! When Carl returns to Gaear with the money, Gaear has killed Jean just because she wouldn't be quiet. The two men argue over who's having the stolen car which ends with Gaear killing Carl with a combination of Axe and a wood chipping machine. Nice.
Marge's leads lead her to the cabin and interrupts Gaear in the middle of his body disposal (one of the most sickening scenes in film- ever!). Gaear tries to run but Marge shoots him in the leg and arrests him. Six deaths from a seemingly straight forward arranged kidnapping. Later Jerry is arrested, for his part in the plot, in a seedy motel.
My thoughts: When I first saw Fargo I was blown away! Although previously I had seen Raising Arizona and Miller's Crossing I really wasn't familiar with the Coen brother's work. Fargo was the film that opened my eyes to the Coen bother's obvious talents. It's interesting how a film so, so dark, with such a sickening plot can make you laugh sooo much. Some of the funniest dialogue I have ever heard is present in this movie (a selection of my favourite dialogue can be found, in wav format, in the Multimedia section). Such a well written screenplay, deserving of it's Best Original Screenplay gong at the 1996 Academy Awards. Perhaps the funniest bit in the film, for me, was when Officer Gary Olsen interviews an elderly man about an encounter he had with the criminals ("So, I'm tendin' bar there at Ecklund && Swedlin's last Tuesday and this little guy's drinkin' and he says, 'So where can a guy find some action - I'm goin' crazy down there at the lake.' And I says, 'What kinda action?' and he says, 'Woman action, what do I look like,' And I says 'Well, what do I look like, I don't arrange that kinda thing,' and he says, 'I'm goin' crazy out there at the lake' and I says, 'Well, this ain't that kinda place.")
A film of this ilk is not supposed to be this funny. I actually felt guilty laughing, especially after the ominous message at the start of the movie, but the guilt soon passes when you come to realise that the events unfolding before you are far too farcical to have really happened... aren't they? The constant f**k-ups in the simple kidnap plot defy belief. The complicated plot is reminiscent of that of Blood Simple in the sense that one crime leads to many a mishap and much confusion between the characters.
The characters are all truly exceptional. Every character in the film oozes Coen. Even the aforementioned lake guy who is in the film for maybe only half a minute. Right from Scotty to Wade to Carl and Gaear, they are all unmistakably Coen brother's-penned characters, but especially the cowardly, yes-man that is Jerry Lundergard and the wonderful Marge Gunderson, an Academy award winning performance by Frances McDormand. William H. Macy plays Jerry perfectly, as if he was made for the part. Having previously seem Macy as the strong, powerful Dr. Morganstern in TV's E.R. seeing him play such a wimpy, grovelling s**t-house was amazing. Much has been said of McDormand's performance as the pregnant police chief and all of the praise is just. The character is incredible. She's sensitive, honest, tough, hard-working not to mention seven months up the duff!
The two bungling idiots Jerry trusts to perform his task play off each other brilliantly, with Carl doing all of the talking while the silent Gaear mutters about ten sentences throughout the movie, adding to his frustration, things are always on a knife-edge with them. It is clear that they are NOT the best of buddies so quite why they are doing this together is astonishing. Their contempt for each other boils over when, ultimately, Carl is killed and minced at the hand of Gaear. Some of the exchanges between the two are both scary and absolutely, side-splittingly hilarious. It really is difficult to take them seriously after seeing them argue over where they're going to eat and bitching/silence all of the way to Brainerd.
The music in the film is excellent and Carter Burwell has really out done himself. He has composed music that perfectly fits in with both the plot and the bizarre snowy town with all of it's pseudo-Swedish occupants.
How the film failed to win Best Picture 1996 is beyond me. By far my favourite Coen brother's movie.
Fargo is a deliciously convoluted tale of crime, punishment and a
cowardly used-car salesman set in a white-out snowscape of Minnesota, written and directed
with the verve, painstaking nuance and outrageously black humour that have become the
mainstay of a Coen movie.
It opens in Fargo, a hick-town, where in a bar fogged with cigarette smoke, desperate,
cash-strapped car dealer Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) hires a
misbegotten duo (Buscemi and Stormare) to
kidnap his wife. He can then cajole her loaded pop (Harve Presnell) to stump up the ransom
and make a killing. The problem is, a killing is exactly what is made. Mishap follows
mess-up into a brilliantly plotted farce of lies, confusion and hilarity.
This is the Coens' paean to the middle-America of their youth,
and thanks to McDormand's heavily pregnant police chief Marge
Gunderson, has the most heart of any of their films. With big-hearted motherliness and a
sharp nose for wrong-doing, she traces the inept brigands and fraught Lundegaard to a
bloody conclusion. The Coens have such an ear and eye for the
myriad quirks of human life that throughout Fargo's movie-sized
absurdity - events take an increasingly corpse-strewn spin out of control - there is a
constant sense of plausibility to it all.
Script-wise it's an expected - by Coen reputation - joy, with
not a cliché nor clunker to be had and an irrepressible playfulness with language,
especially the spittle-spilling Scandinavian originated names of the region. Acting-wise,
too, it hums with class. Buscemi does his finest rendition of the
put-upon, whining geek yet, Stormare manages to elicit pure menace
with scattered grunts and scares, and McDormand's chirruping,
waddling Marge - a true original - is a career best. Director Joel
recalls Blood Simple's expansiveness in a solemn world of endless
snow and from Marge's unfortunate class reunion to the Psycho reference in the kidnap
scene mixes the real with the oddball without showing the joins.
The Coens are still a million miles from Hollywood staple, but
with Fargo's comic felicity, gun-packing coolness and ability to
come up with the totally unexpected, they maintain their place among America's most
important filmmakers. Excellent.
Ian Nathan.
Leonard Maltin review: 3.5 stars out of 4
The Coen Brothers put a unique spin on a murder case, layering their story with droll observations about Minnesotans and winding up with a totally disarming comedy! McDormand is terrific as an efficient (and pregnant) police chief with multiple murders on her hands; Macy is equally good as a two-bit schemer who tries to stay cool when he finds himself way over his head in a quicksand of crime. Love that Muzak in the background! Oscar winner for Best Screenplay (Joel and Ethan Coen) and Actress (McDormand).
