Fargo

Being stubborn means lots of things. One is that I will never stop being a Lions fan regardless of what happens. Another is that if a film wins the Academy Award for best picture by beating out a film that I feel is so good that there is no conceivable way that the winning film could have been better than I will refuse to watch the winning film. To this day I have never seen The English Patient and I never plan to.
Fargo is the kind of film you watch and you walk away from thinking "WOW." It takes us in to the life of Jerry Lundegaard, a well intentioned but fatally desperate man whose financial struggles have lead him to concoct a scheme that involves having his wife kidnapped and getting his wealthy father in-law to pay the ransom. What could possibly go wrong with that?
In lesser hands this might just be an average film, but in the hands of the Coen brothers the films manages to routinely move in back and forth between genres as it is equal parts Shakespearean tragedy, brutal crime drama, and small town America oddity. The characters are all blessed with their own unique voice with Frances McDormand stealing the show as the pregnant police officer Marge Gunderson.
We start with Jerry arriving in Fargo North Dakota to deliver a new car to the 2 men he has hired to kidnap his wife. The 2 men make for a Jekyll and Hyde team as one is the ultra-violent quite type while the other is a loud mouth looking to avoid violence whenever possible. Steve Buscemi plays the talkative one who is painfully unaware of how ineffective his verbal skills are. Buscemi is brilliant here and this role has also provided me personally with one of my favorite lines when several Minnesota locals refer to Buscemi as being funny looking without being able to provide any other descriptors.
After Jerry sets the deal up in Fargo he returns home to his job as a failing car salesman working for his father in-law who clearly does not respect him. He is scene trying to get funding for a land deal while holding off auditors at the dealership who are inquiring about loan money and missing cars. Throughout all of this Jerry tries to move forward by ignoring his problems and putting on a happy face. He has a dogged determination about himself that says life should be easy and I'm going to work as hard as I can to make my life easy. Tragically, he seems to be too prideful to admit his mistakes.
Following the kidnapping we see our criminals being pulled over for a minor traffic violation. Buscemi's mouth digs the men into a deeper hole and then without warning the film turns violent as the arresting cop and two witnesses are murdered by Buscemi's partner leaving even Buscemi shocked and horrified.
This brings McDormand's character into the film as the police chief investigating the murders. It is within this character that the film creates it's delicate balancing act between small town kookiness and crime drama. At no point is the film making fun of McDormand as the pregnant investigator and yet there is almost an innocent sense of joy in watching her preform her work. Keep in mind we are dealing with events that would leave any normal individual emotionally scarred and yet she performs her duties professionally and admirably. In a lesser film there most certainly would have been some jokes set up at the expense of the small town chief but here she is celebrated. I might also add that in making her pregnant the Coen's create a character who is a constant source for optimism and provides a unique commentary on how no matter what the circumstances are that you face there is always hope in new life.
The film's journey is one filled with misstep after misstep. Jerry's plan unravels as his father in-law seeks control of the situation. There is more blood and more death as Chief Gunderson gets closer to the truth and eventually catches the surviving criminal. In the patrol car Chief Gunderson appears dumbfounded as she laments on why so many people had to die over "a little bit of money." This questions feels appropriately directed at the criminal in the back seat, but I believe the Coens are asking the question to Jerry. In life we all make mistakes, in Jerry's case he refused to deal with them and because of that he brought tragedy to his family and strangers. All because of a little bit of money.