Reviewing Movies

It seemed only fitting to follow one Coen brother’s thriller with an earlier opus. In Fargo Mid-Western corn-ball seems to be played almost to the point of parody complete with Paul Bunyon statue and Blue Ox roadhouse. If, as the movie claims, events are based upon actual happenings, the chief of a large urban police force being female seems unique. We do not get to hear the comments made around the station house in her absence about her artistic house-husband.

Being the wife of one of the co-directors can’t have hurt Frances McDormand’s chances but her acting skills are not in question in any case. Beneath that childlike friendliness lies a canny mind and a will of steel. When she bellies up to the all-you-can-eat buffet she really looks like she’s eating for two, being seven months pregnant. When she finally closes in on the killers she calls it in but proceeds without waiting for backup meeting the approaching cavalry on the way back with the cuffed villain behind her in the prowl car.

Although there’s little to like about his character in this film for some reason I just don’t like William Macy period. A hen-pecked husband held hostage in life by his wife’s father’s millions he is ineffectual even when he attempts a life of crime. His son Scotty does not even register in his plans.

One of the few truly comic moments is provided by the pair of hookers the abductors meet at the roadhouse. When interviewed by the sheriff the best description the blonde can come up with is that her john was strange, the only detail she remembers about his appearance is that he wasn’t circumcised. When questioned further she returns to strange.

The sheriff and her husband spend a good part of the movie in bed, an interesting location for a director to place his wife. The movie even arrives at its conclusion there.