Genre: Crime – Drama — Mystery — Neo-Noir — Thriller
Els: 7.5/10
IMDB: 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 95/100
Rotten Tomatoes Audience: 8.3/100
Metacritic Metascore: 84/100
Metacritic User Score: 8.0/10
Directed by: Joel Coen
Screenplay by: Joel and Ethan Coen
Music by: Carter Burwell
Cast: John Getz, Francis McDormand, Dan Hedaya
Film Locations: Austin and Round Rock, Texas
Budget: $1.5 Million
Worldwide Box Office: $2.7 Million
Blood Simple is a twisted Texas tale of a honky-tonk owner, a cheating wife, contract killings, misunderstandings, and violence.
This is the Coen brothers’ first movie along with the first major film for Barry Sonnenfeld and Francis McDormand. A classic neo-noir crime film setting the stage for Fargo and No Country for Old Men down the road.
The film was ranked at number 98 on AFI’s 2001 movie listing of the top 100 Thrills in American cinema. In case you are wondering Hitchcock’s 1960 film, Psycho was first.
Source: IMDB. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Wikipedia. Graphic: Movie Poster, Circle Releasing.
Awards: Best Actress–Best Supporting Actor, Academy Awards; Best Actress–Best Picture–Best Screenplay–Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe Awards; and many others.
How I missed this movie for 7 years is mystery but I’m glad I found it. The movie won multiple major Academy and Golden Globe Awards and it didn’t even register within my sphere of consciousness. Of course, if I paid any attention, which I don’t, to Hollywood award shows I may have caught it. But any who, I saw a mention about the movie online while browsing and decided to give it view. I’m probably the only person on the planet that hasn’t watched this movie but on the off chance you haven’t, you should.
After Coen Brother’s 1996 black comedy crime film: ‘Fargo‘, ‘Three Billboards‘ brings another black comedy crime film without the Coens but thankfully with Joel Coen’s spouse, the fantastically wonderful actress, Frances McDormand to the screen. McDormand takes the lead role in ‘Three Billboards‘, as she did in ‘Fargo‘, and turns in a engrousing performance as a grieving and scheming mother earning her the Academy and Golden Globes Best Actress awards in the process.
‘Three Billboards‘ was written and directed by Martin McDonagh in which he garnered the 2017 Golden Globe Best Screenplay for the movie. He followed up this film with the 2022 movie ‘The Banshees of Inisherin‘ which won the 2022 Golden Globe for Best Movie. In both movies McDonagh brings his trademark dark humor cloaked in a drama to the big screen. Tragedy is a better genre fit for McDonagh’s work but that term seems to belong to a time long passed.
FootnoteA
Frances McDormand, as Mildred, is a mother looking for closure over her daughter’s rape and murder in the small town of Ebbing, Missouri. After many months of waiting for the local authorities to solve the crimes she grows despondent and desperate over the lack of progress in apprehending, or at a minimum, identifying a suspect and begins to take matters into her own hands.
This movie hits on all cylinders, the screenplay, direction, cinematography which is beautiful, and acting all come together to produce a mostly coherent story with multiple sub-plots that are a feast for your senses and emotions. The only ding I have is that towards the end of the movie McDonagh introduces a twist in the plot that makes very little sense unless they were planning for a sequel, or it is a deus ex machina solution to an intractable plot problem. It is a minor irritation but in its defense, without the twist the final scene would have been very different and likely not as fullfilling.
On an extraneous side note, as with ‘Fargo‘ which was filmed mainly in multiple locations in Minnesota, ‘Three Billboards’ was filmed in multiple locations in North Carolina. Movies are for believers.
Small Town Crime (Theaters-NA; Streaming-January 2018) Rated: R — Runtime: 91-92 minutes
Genre: Crime-Drama-Mystery-Suspense-Thriller
els – 7.0/10
IMDB – 6.6/10
Amazon – 4.0/5 stars
Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 7.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.9/5
Metacritic Metascore – 68/100
Metacritic User Score – NA/10
Awards: None
Directed by: Eshom Nelms, Ian Nelms
Written by: Eshom Nelms, Ian Nelms
Music by: Chris Westlake
Cast: John Hawkes, Octavia Spencer, Robert Forster, Anthony Anderson
Film Locations: Utah
Budget: $NA
Worldwide Box Office: $NA
Mike Kendall (John Hawkes) is a big-time drunk and a small-town ex-cop. A small-town ex-cop because he is a big-time drunk. Riding shotgun, too drunk to drive, with his uniformed partner; occurring immediately before he becomes an ex-cop, in the wee hours of night, they pull over a car and the driver shoots and kills Mike’s partner. Mike, because he was drunk, is thrown off the force and he sinks further into the bottle but truly believing the police will forgive, forget and hire him back.
Coming around from his nightly bender, Mike finds a badly bloodied girl by the side of the road. He rushes her to the hospital but she soon dies and the death is ruled a homicide. Seeking redemption, Mike sets out to solve the murder, dragging his family, bartenders, hookers, pimps, grandfathers, and assorted none-too friendly cops along for his burlesque, but borderline professional investigation, into multiple gruesome murders.
The Nelms brothers have woven a fateful crime story worthy of the Cohen brothers’ The Big Lebowski or Fargo. Less comedic than Lebowski and less dramatic than Fargo but all three display the same irreverent contempt for criminals and their slapdash, albeit, serious and consequential, escapades. The Nelms’ writing and directing are reminiscent of Dragnet’s Friday, just the facts — ma’am. Watching the movie you wish they would develop some of the more interesting sub-plot lines but in the end the movie does just fine without the added knowledge or clutter.
The acting is superb. John Hawks is masterful in delivery but he really pulls you in and along with his bumbling style and looks. His appearance and his face are one with a character that has been on a multi-year drunk. Gaunt and not too pretty he somehow succeeds in getting you to cheer for him no matter how much his bum nature comes into full gnarly view.
A fun movie, not too serious but captivating just the same. A worthy addition to pulp fiction and film noir. Escapism with a style all its own.
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