{"id":16632,"date":"2014-04-03T04:33:34","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T08:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=16632"},"modified":"2015-10-03T04:38:47","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T08:38:47","slug":"fargo-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/03\/fargo-1996\/","title":{"rendered":"Fargo (1996)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fargo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Leave it to the Coen Brothers to provide movie audiences with a crime heroine that we’d never really see coming at some of the worst criminals around. Marge Gunderson is not your typical gumshoe and probably never really desired to be one growing up. She’s a small town simple woman who is about to give birth to a baby, and only really works until she is able to head off to the hospital. But things go from mundane to extraordinary when what seems like a random series of homicides on a snowy road side turns in to a very disastrous plot to extort and embezzle money out of a car dealership.<\/p>\n

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Frances McDormand is brilliant as the charming and whip smart police officer Marge, who is called to investigate an isolated murder scene, and instantly begins pulling together clues that unfoil a kidnapping plot. Set in the harsh winter in Minneapolis, Marge investigates the murders that lead her to Jerry Lundegaard, a seemingly humble car salesman. Due to various financial bungling, Jerry is now in debt to his boss and shrill father in law. Through contacts, he meets two convicts for hire, and plans on kidnapping his wife and garnering a hefty amount of money out of her father, with the idea on keeping most of the ransom money and clearing his debts once and for all. But events spiral out of control, when the kidnapping turns violent, and the two thugs Carl and Gaear prove to be unreliable and unpredictable.<\/p>\n

Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare almost steal the film away with their roles as the bungling partners that can never seem to keep any plan going smoothly, which results in the vicious murders in the prologue and eventual confrontations that snowball in to hell. Stormare is memorable as the silent but neurotic Gaear, while Buscemi chews the scenery as the disgruntled convict who garners much of the punishment for the failed plans. Most of Gunderson’s own life is shown through the white lens of Minneapolis where she’s surrounded left and right by snow, but never seems deterred in her unusual urge to solve the crime and seal the case once and for all.<\/p>\n

McDormand plays Gunderson with immense humility and charm, proving to be a disarming and unassuming individual who quickly proves to be brutally intelligent, and runs mental circles around the criminals attempting to evade her investigation at all corners. As is typical Coen Brothers entertainment. “Fargo” offers incredibly complex characterization along with very memorable dark comedy. From Jerry struggling to escape a police raid, to Marge confronting Gaear after the infamous wood chipper sequence, most of it will inspire a laugh and a cringe. The Coens have about as much fascination with Gunderson as they do their villains of the piece, and provide some entertaining looks at Gunderson’s investigations as she meets with prostitutes, and a local police officers, ad hilarity, and is also given her own moral conundrum parallel to the crime case.<\/p>\n

In one bittersweet moment the down to Earth Marge meets with an old classmate who is now a successful businessman and anxious for a wife. Attempting to seduce her and entice her with his riches, Marge is given a glimpse to a somewhat alternate fate that meant wealth but misery. Hence the dilemma with Lundegaard (William H. Macy is hilarious) who is financially well off on the surface, but can barely keep from going mad at his financial woes that lead to crime and pain. “Fargo” is most of all about money and how it can rot us to the core, whether we know it or not. As is indicated in the final scene with Marge and Gaear, she’s the last flicker of good and heroism in a world filled with rotten, greedy, violent human beings, and she fears the future of her unborn child.<\/p>\n