Review of Blood Simple (1985) by Sam R — 02 Sep 2008

The Coen Brothers' first film is one of their best. It displays so much of what made many of their subsequent films great: a tightly wound story, sharply-defined characters, and small details that baloon into big problems. It shows their inexperience at times, but it also shows their extraordinary talent. It took them until No Country For Old Men to return to what makes Blood Simple so effective, and that is its simplicity. Strip away everything that could even be remotely considered unnecessary, and what your left with is the story. Tell that.

That's not to say they haven't made great films between the two. They certainly have (Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo) and they've certainly had their misses (The Lady Killers, The Hudsucker Proxy) but all of the films between their two Texas blood-lettings have had frills, or quirks, or absurdities. The title, Blood Simple, is very accurate.

Part of what makes the storytelling so strong is that everything is about what people do, not about what is done to them. Nothing happens by accident, and nothing that happens is simply convenient for the story; everything is caused to happen by someone who has made a decision, right or wrong, knowledgable or ignorant, effective or disastrous. Every character has a piece of the puzzle that the others don't know, and, more importantly, a piece the others don't know that they're missing. And every character is missing something crucial.

When the entire story is driven by its characters, and all the characters are trying to keep up with the story they don't entirely know, you have a Coen Brothers movie. This one ranks with the best.