Review of Blue Ruin (2014) by John M — 24 Jun 2016

My kind of revenge story. Sold with the tagline "revenge comes home", this is about a mysterious loner, coming back to his hometown, trying to obtain his pound of flesh. I knew practically nothing about this before I sat down to give it a whirl; it was available to stream on Netflix, and a close friend who has similar tastes in movies as me highly recommended it.

For a movie that I had no expectations of, this highly impressed me. I can get into a good revenge story, but lately, the movies that have been coming out in the subgenre have been sort of middling. Speaking frankly, you can keep your John Wick and The Equalizer, this is where it's at.

The most interesting element presented here is the protagonist himself. It's his story, so naturally, you're spending the majority of the time with him. It's never made clear if he's a good guy or not, and the film doesn't present a strong case either way, leaving it completely up to you, as an audience member, to make up your mind about him.

He's barely functioning as a human being because he is so focused on the task at hand, but for the most part, he's a smart guy; he sometimes makes boneheaded decisions in the moment, which is further cause for the situation to go from bad to worse to doomed.

This is one of those situations that I feel the less you know about this movie, the better. It is a film that speaks for itself, delivering a taut, raw story that is never afraid to get gritty and show you the ramifications of this impossible situation.

There is a sparse amount of dialogue, so you're given plenty of time to dwell on how exactly you feel about this guy. If you're looking to be surprised by something you've never heard of before, look no further.