FARGOBy Attic Girl
Fargo, North Dakota, in the dead of winter. Everywhere you look, there’s snow.In a bar fogged with cigarette smoke, car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) meets with a pair of thugs, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) to discuss the kidnapping of his wife. Jerry is a loser. He’s deep in dept and cheats customers at the car dealership.
Wade, his wealthy father-in-law who he’s working for, has no respect for him.
Desperate for quick cash, Jerry plans to force Wade to pay the ransom and then split the money with the kidnappers. But things go horribly awry. When the two not-so-bright crooks drive their victim away in an automobile (that is part of their payment), they get stopped by a state trooper. Finding themselves in a sqeeuze, they shoot the cop in the head.
Enter Marge Gunderson, the local police chief, marvelously played by Frances McDormand. She’s seven months pregnant, and still on the job. Eating in nearly every scene, and responding with ‘Yer darned tootin’ to just about everything she hears, Marge is forthright, amiable and determined to solve the case in her offhanded manner. She is a female Columbo and there is never any doubt she will uncover Jerry’s lies and his bungled plot.Fargo is a highly original crime movie with dark comic undertones. Short bursts of violence alternate with really funny sequences. Once again, the Coen Brothers have populated their film with some bizarre characters, outstandingly performed by Macy, McDormand and Buscemi in particular.
Steve Buscemi, not surprisingly, steals all his scenes as the talkative and neurotic Carl. At one point, Carl decides to bury part of the ransom money in the snow beside the highway. Coming back, the genius looks both ways up and all he sees is snow and the same fence for miles in all directions. Hilarious, trust me ! Buscemi, a Coen regular, dies in almost every film of them, his remains gradually shrinking, and here... well, just these two words : WOOD CHIPPER !
Apparently, the Scandinavian sing-song dialect used by the cast upset many people from Minnesota and North Dakota, who thought they were being ridiculed. However, the Coens themselves grew up in Minnesota. And really, the odd way everyone talks is the movie’s secret weapon. Most of the humor comes out of their constant use of banal expressions such as ‘Oh yah ? Yah’ and ‘Aw, jeez’ in a consistent deadpan tone.