Mediocre Movie Club Movie Reviews

FARGO

4/8/2015

A-
3.74

It's a travesty that Steve Buscemi has never even been nominated for an Oscar - Riley
Is anyone in this town who they say they are? - Phil
Like Paul Bunyan impassively watching from the highway, Fargo's going to last forever - Jon

Initial Review by Blair

Your darn tootin I thought this was a fantastic movie. While I wasn't left with anything profound to ponder about life, I have continued to have a deep appreciation of the accents, stereotype fulfillments, and perfect dialogue/scene gems that this movie nails.

No character was wasted for me. Even the small roles were perfect. Big nods of course to Frances McDormand, Buscemi (who I love in everything), Peter Stormare, and William Macy in that order. Macy should maybe be higher, but he's such a despicable skeeze, I put him last. I AM still wondering about how/why he got into money trouble in the first place. I think it's great that they just left it out.

Noteworthy scenes:
Buscemi's arguing over the portion of the car he refuses to pay while having some 960K back on the endless snowy highway. Brilliant.

The scene where the dude is shoveling his driveway and has called in to the police station over some "suspicious activity." The character movement and dialogue is priceless.

Marge meeting Mike at the Radisson and then finding out his real story. It's so perfect - typical high school ex meet up and somehow seems befitting for the mid(north)west; love the follow up convo that he's actually a sad loser and Marge's response, "Well that's surprising." Her character is the moral compass throughout and so it's also befitting, that she's pregnant.

Related, I thought it was great that that Stormare's character is touched by the pregnancy on reality TV right before killing Buscemi so brutally and then ends up getting lectured by a pregnant cop.

BTW - it looks like Fraces McDormand actually gets nailed in the shin by that piece of wood he throws at her, no??

All in all, a fabulous movie: A.

-Blair

31 Comments

Sean

4/9/2015 03:50:10 am

I knock movies for not having dialogue all the time so Fargo and any Coen bros movie is going to rate highly by default. Menial conversation does so much more to tell me about the backgrounds and motives of characters while also providing occasional comic fodder and relatability to characters of all walks of life than the typical plot driven tell me your backstory friend who I've known for 20 years conversation we get from most movies. I understand why movies take that path, it's easier and faster to tell us everything we need to know than to simply introduce a character and have us draw our own conclusions to who they are and where they came from.

As Blair mentioned above how exactly did Jerry get into money problems? Is it just because he was trying to buy this other lot he tried to get his father-in-law to invest in or was that investment another means of getting money to dig himself out of his hole? Is the hole he's in because of his shady dealings with cars and serial numbers that he's fudging on or was that another way out? Ultimately it doesn't matter all that matters in the story is that he's desperate/stupid enough to consult with an ex-con mechanic about hiring strangers to kidnap his wife. His interactions with Marge are hilarious and show how inept of a criminal he is that he not only didn't plan for any contingencies or police involvement but he has no ability to think on his feet. When he stormed off to do a lot count and just got in his car and left I laughed out loud the first time I saw it.

Stromare and Buscemi in the car together was fantastic, Buscemi's character complaining about the lack of conversation and trying to give him a taste of his own medicine, he can't shut up for a minute.

Blair nailed it talking about him haggling over the car price when he has a million buried in the snow. It's a continuation of the even better scene when he haggles with the parking attendant with the future mediocrity for quote of the year.

"I guess you think you're... you know, like an authority figure, with that stupid fuckin' uniform, huh buddy? King clip-on-tie there, big fuckin' man, huh? You know these are the limits of your life, man! The rule of your little fuckin' gate here! Here's your four dollars, you pathetic piece of shit!"

At this point he's expecting half of 40 grand coming to him so he's haggling over 0.02% of his expected take.

The shoveling guy telling the story about suspicious activity was golden, he reminded me very much of Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys.

The first half did drag a little and the great scenes in the movie weren't appropriately balanced with most coming one after another in the 2nd half so I'm going to hold that + back and just give it an A

4/9/2015 03:51:35 am

I forgot, it's a travety that Buscemi has never even been nominated for an Oscar

Phil

4/9/2015 04:40:32 am

At least he's got those Nucky Thompson Emmy Noms to keep him warm at night...

Who's more desperate to win a Best Actor Emmy this year? Jon Hamm or Buscemi?

4/9/2015 06:00:43 am

Buscemi has a Golden Globe for Nucky and a handful of ensemble cast SAG awards. Hamm has a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award to go with his ensemble SAG awards. I'd say it's a pretty tight race.

I'd put more money on Buscemi getting the big Oscar in a supporting role sometime in his future than on Hamm getting 1 so it's probably more needed for Hamm. Plus, he actually became an alcoholic in real life during Mad Men and as far as I know Buscemi hasn't killed anyone.

I'm going Hamm.

4/9/2015 06:13:25 am

I think I agree. Hamm probably died a little inside when AMC cleared Breaking Bad out for him and he still lost to Kyle Chandler. Don Draper is in the TV Hall of Fame... I'm not sure Nucky Thompson is.

Jon

4/9/2015 06:56:53 am

Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men both have been getting less and less Emmy nominations every year. They might get some people paying attention to them again since both ended or are ending in this current season, especially in Mad Men's case, but it's totally possible that neither of them get nominated.

Emmys-are-weird tidbit: No one from Mad Men has never won a lead or supporting prize.

4/9/2015 08:16:36 am

Anna Gunn has two yet Elisabeth Moss has zero. That's a minor travesty.

I think Boardwalk and Mad Men have solid swansongs. First and last seasons are the big cleanup years it feels like. (How else does Kyle Chandler beat Jon Hamm on the year when "The Suitcase" was his submission?) Breaking Bad & True Detective are out of the way and nothing new showed up that lit the world on fire. (I don't think The Affair did enough & American Crime, while REALLY good, probably ends up in mini-series.)

Of course, all bets are off once Game of Thrones starts. A good season out of them could lead to a sweep.

4/9/2015 08:26:55 am

As a Friday Night Lights fan, Kyle Chandler deserved that win.

I checked out Gold Derby's predictions for Emmy awards, and they've got Boardwalk Empire well out of it. It does have HBO's marketing machine behind it, so who knows, but I'd bet most of their energy goes into GoT, which might finally break through this year. I hope Boardwalk gets some nods, but I'm not optimistic.

4/9/2015 04:35:19 am

“Fargo” is a damn-near perfect master course in deception and playing with the audience’s expectations. No character can really be taken at face value despite the audience initially wanting to thanks to its setting. Ultimately, the North Dakota small-town setting becomes the movie’s strongest characteristic, taking a rather bland and tired idea and reinvigorating it with a certain charm that can only come from a place that seems simple only to the outside world.

No character can be taken at face value in Fargo. This is best seen through the two main characters, Marge & Jerry. We meet Jerry first, who on the surface is nothing more than a friendly car dealer in the Minneapolis. How could a guy like this have a bad bone in his body? We get a great scene showing him screw one of his buyers out of $400 – nice guy who is very much driven by his ENVY of his well-to-do father-in-law who clearly sees him as a disappointment. Marge is much more subtle in her revelation. On the outside, she’s your friendly small-town deputy, seven months pregnant to boot. I loved her first major scene where she pieces together the crime in about five minutes and politely criticizes Lou’s policework with the dealer plate connection. Marge has already become one of my favorite characters in movie history in how well she plays with our expectations. The Coens give themselves a pretty long bridge to build to get us from lovable Margey needing help jumping her cruiser from her SLOTH, GLUTTONOUS husband to coolly blasting a slug into the back of Gaear, and there wasn’t a single misstep along the way.

The entire movie is all about playing with the audience’s expectations. C’mon, we’re in North freaking Dakota! Everyone walks around with a smile on their face and makes innocuous conversation about the weather… how could this be lurking below the surface with so many of these people? The setting winds up becoming one of the most important characters in this regard. Even the setting plays into this sense of deception, as Brainerd is the home of Paul Bunyan, a mythical character. Just imagine quickly if this movie is set in New York or LA and everyone behaves in that stereotypical manner with the sleazy car dealer and the hard-nosed detective – this is a C+ at best in those circumstances. Attempt to make it a thriller where the audience is left “guessing” what happened, and we’re probably down in the D range. What appears at first to be the strangest choices about this movie – setting it in rural North Dakota and laying out the ransom plan from the word go – wind up being its greatest strengths. If anyone has ever played 2013’s “Gone Home,” you can attest to the strength of playing with the audiences expectations through the use of setting. I wouldn’t be surprised if the game designers were at least slightly influenced by media like Fargo when creating Gone Home (which was probably my 2013 Game of the Year btw – I wish I could use it as a club pick, b/c it would work perfectly here).

4/9/2015 04:35:41 am

The remaining characters have their own subtle revelations & flaws, many of which lead to downfalls of their own. Carl is a great character that appears to be cool and collected, very much a negotiator. That’s why he has Gaear around after all. Ultimately, when left to his own devices, we see him for what he really is. He’s not much different from Gaear after all, but is ultimately a victim of his own GREED, betrayed by Gaear when he attempts to take more than his share. Then we have the LUSTFUL Mike, representing himself as recently separated bachelor looking to reconnect with an old friend, who proves out to just be a lunatic. Seriously, is anyone in this town who they say they are?! Well, sort of. If the characters of Fargo were playing Poker, Wade would be holding his hand in a way you could easily sneak a peek at his cards. We get a good idea of who Wade is early on. He’s very much all about the investment and doesn’t care much for who is involved. He ultimately thinks he can solve any problem himself, and you know what they say, PRIDE before the fall. Back to the poker game, if Wade is holding his hand in a way that can be seen, then Gaear just threw his cards on the table from the word go. We know who he is throughout – a killer who seems to do it for the sport. He’s pure WRATH, and that’s ultimately his downfall. Why do I keep typing random words in all caps? Anywho…

One final theme that I particularly enjoyed was people fleeing from hopeless situations for comedic effect. Jean fleeing from Carl and Gaear was, from a dark comedy standpoint, pure gold. Riley already called out Jerry’s similar flight, also hilarious. In all, we end up with four occurrences of hopeless fleeing. Obviously there aren’t any big “stand your ground” laws in 1996 North Dakota.

Fargo is a great movie that shows no age. Nothing is really as it seems on the surface here, and the subtle revelations of these small-town folk being not much different from what you would see anywhere else in America is what makes the movie truly special. Every performance is fantastic, and we get everything we need in 91 minutes. That, my friends, earns the + from me.

+ Great setting and characters
+ Oddest choices wind up being strongest points
+ Marge in general

Grade: A+

Blair

4/9/2015 04:44:42 am

great review, Phil!

4/9/2015 08:19:23 am

Thanks Blair! Great pick - Fargo has been in my queue forever.

Drew

4/10/2015 07:56:25 am

Interesting thoughts, Phil. The seven deadly sins theme is an intriguing analysis. Not to slam your thought, but it could be used in a lot of films. One just needs to look for it.

Fargo displays a lot of sociological and psychological aspects in each character that delving into them would take an incredible amount of time. A brief and broad analysis, however, will suffice. If compared to the themes found in The Breakfast Club, similarity is present with Fargo. In that iconic 1980s film, there is the geek, the jock, the criminal, the basket case, and the princess. The five main characters have different paths that crossed on a Saturday morning in detention, which sparked cordial feelings among each other. The Breakfast Club has a positive ending. So how does that compare and/or contrast to Fargo?

Marge is the mom who quickly figures out things. Her ability to figure out the situation at the crime scene without help, put the pieces together on the dealer plates, and find the significance of meeting with Mike is spot on. Those are good qualities of a detective, yes, but at the same time is that not parenty of her? She reminds me of my mother.

Jerry is a timid failure. Everything he attempted in the film did not go according to plan. He actually believed Wade would go along with his plan to loan him the money. Unreal. There are instances but none is greater than the plan that served as the plot for the film. That was a disaster.

Carl is a little dog. What does a little dog do? They think they are big dogs and their alpha personality is larger than them and they find themselves in situations out of which they cannot get. Hence the incessant barking and growling in hopes of scaring off others.

Carl comes off as the one in charge That he calls the shots and no one messes with him when in reality he is a unexpected pawn being used.

Gaear is the sociopath. There is a reason he said little to nothing because he was not about to tell Carl any of his plans. There is no evidence to suggest this other than character observations, but Gaear planned to cross Carl. Why else be silent? One need not worry about the loud for they state their plans even when they appear not to do so. The silent ones need the attention and in Gaear's case, Carl should have been more aware.

The minor characters play a role and have themes too, like Wade is pretty blunt. He has no finesse because he is too old.

These themes are noticeable and mesh well when a character comes in contact with another. Viewers see Jerry's timidness when Marge questions him both times; not to mention when he is in the same room as Wade. Gaear says nothing when captured by Marge. Perhaps he is planning something. Gaear had enough of Carl and killed him. Hell, he had enough of Jean.

4/10/2015 08:09:40 am

I am sure no one will agree with my premise of the themes but people disagree with me. What else is new?

4/10/2015 08:11:52 am

"Interesting thoughts, Phil. The seven deadly sins theme is an intriguing analysis. Not to slam your thought, but it could be used in a lot of films. One just needs to look for it."

That's partially why it wasn't the main theme of my review. There was too much to talk about and I chose to go the "deception" route mainly. It wasn't the most interesting part of the movie to me, but it was just sitting there, so I felt compelled to include it. If you thought the seven deadly sins were the main theme of my review, you read it wrong.

4/10/2015 11:07:55 am

Maybe you wrote it wrong....jerkface!

4/10/2015 03:24:47 pm

touche

4/10/2015 08:07:24 am

The Coen brothers are pretty good at setting up characters and this another example of their excellence. They also set everyone up for a true story, which it was not (http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/fargo.asp). Another good spoof by the Coens.

This is a great film but the downside is the accent and the idioms. I love accents - mainly northeastern ones :) - but I cannot stand southern or the northern Great Plain accents. They annoy me to no end but the actors did a great job in displaying them. Even crazy, Asian Mike (reference to crazy, Irish Mike from freshman rush year) had the accent. Wow.

Dr. Gugin made my state and local government class watch this film and it was odd because I had no idea what this had to do with government. Of course, that was always the deal with Gugin but he was awesome, so when I see or hear about this film, I am reminded of him with fondness.

With the themes, the acting, the great timing of the music by Burwell, and the sentimental factor involved, this is an "A" film. I will stick to that.

Grade: A

P.S. I enjoyed it.

4/10/2015 03:41:52 pm

Curious why Dr. Gugin (I assume UE?) picked this film, of all films, to show in his state and local government class. I don't see the connection.

4/10/2015 03:55:21 pm

Yes, it was UE and when it came to Gugin, students disregarded the actual title of the course and just listened and enjoyed what the man did. You just knew you were in a special class with him at the helm.

More to the point, I think the connection was how the police corresponded with each other and how far jurisdiction expanded even though the suspects were outsiders.

4/10/2015 07:15:27 pm

We're on our 57th Mediocre Movie, and I've been thinking about my future picks in terms of what directors are we missing. We've got a Scorsese, a Coppola Sr., a Tarantino, a Mann, a Leone, and two Friedkins, so we're doing pretty good. We'll eventually get a Paul Thomas Anderson and a Robert Altman and a Kubrick and a Spielberg and a Soderbergh, but I was most anxiously awaiting the day we would add something from the Coen Brothers to our filmography. Their movies, even the less-than ones (fuck you, Hudsucker Proxy), always bring a lot to the table, and props to Blair for picking one of the greater-than ones. Fargo is my third-favorite Coens film, which speaks to how impressive their careers have been, because this film is great from start to finish.

For those of you who follow my Letterboxd blog (shameless plug), I introduced a review of the Swedish movie Force Majeure with a digression about male anti-heroes over the last fifteen years, and how much of the Golden Age of TV has been driven by alpha males, or wanna-be alpha males, struggling against the universe and trying to assert their dominance. That was fresh in my mind while watching Fargo, a film that may as well have inspired Vince Gilligan to one day create Breaking Bad. While Phil talked about Fargo in respect to its subversion of expectations and Drew made a tortured Breakfast Club analogy, what stuck out for me on this viewing of Fargo is its depiction of masculinity as a useless endeavor.

Jerry is the most obvious avatar of this theme, as he's driven by a constant fear of emasculation. Riley and Blair were curious about the specifics of his already-established money woes, but what's certain is why he has them. Jerry hates being compared to his father-in-law, and until he can replicate Wade's success, he'll always see himself as the beta male in his family. Maybe even the gamma male once Scotty gets older. A lot of Fargo plays out in internal negotiations, with characters asking themselves which of two emotional needs must be satisfied at this moment. Jerry's obsession with looking like a Big Man is consistently weighed as greater than the risk of entrusting his wife's safety to two criminals he knows nothing about. I even believe he loves his wife, but her safety is less than the more fulfilling relationship he can have with her if he pulls this off. The Coens never let him have a triumphant or even a competent moment. His panicked, post-kidnappping rehearsal is undercut by the secretary picking up first. He's humiliated by the man he forces the Tru-Coat on. Even when he's by himself in the parking lot, he throws an ineffectual, pointless tantrum. He's a man doomed to fail, and his failure is rooted in his grasping at some kind of imagined ideal that he can never measure up to.

Carl is the other big exemplar of the masculinity theme. Where Jerry is 100% weakness, Carl is 90%, with that extra 10% being all bluster. Every interaction is a chance to prove himself as the swinging dick in the room, though he has neither the charisma nor the intelligence to pull this off. What he does have is a gun, a handy penis stand-in he can whip out at any uppity parking attendants and show them who's boss. His head-slappingly stupid end is the only way a character like that can go out, as we've all previously mentioned. He just can't allow himself to be diminished in any way, even for that 0.02% return.

4/11/2015 04:28:26 am

A tortured analogy? Gee, thanks Jon. You should not have....jerkface.

4/13/2015 03:59:22 am

Glad I'm not the only jerkface in the room.

4/14/2015 10:54:50 am

I stand by it. The very tenuous connection is that both movies contain archetypal characters that are revealed to be more than their types, which could be said of a lot of movies. My anti-John-Hughes prejudice is showing.

4/16/2015 12:09:22 pm

It is fine that you do, Jon, but "tortured' is unfair. I am perfectly fine if you do not like my opinion but geez.

4/13/2015 03:58:28 am

Is Hudsucker Proxy your least favorite Coen Brothers movie? Or did we all just pretend to agree that abomination The Ladykillers doesn't exist anymore?

4/13/2015 05:50:19 am

Hudsucker Proxy is at the bottom for me, yes. On the Ladykillers, I actually really liked it, with the exception of Marlon Wayans's character, who is the worst character in any Coen movie.

4/10/2015 07:16:11 pm

The ideals for Jerry and Carl are Wade and Gaear, respectively. Jerry wants to be Wade, to have the kind of power Wade's wealth bestows on him. Carl would love to be able to intimidate people like Gaear can. The Coens have the good sense to demonstrate what pointless goals these are. Wade was good at whatever it was that allowed him to make all that money, and he assumes those skills translate to everything, including hostage negotiation with his daughter's life on the line. His hubris leaves him dead in the snow, just like the average, luckless nobody Gaear shoots in the back. As the embodiment of the strong, silent type, Gaear is just a sociopath, casually killing Jeannie and hacking Carl to pieces. He is state-of-nature masculinity, a tool of both casual and focused violence which he uses to protect his resources. Neither character, or the type they inhabit, is worth emulating.

The antidote for this masculine nonsense is all-time great character Marge Gunderson. She loves her husband in spite of his gross habits, cracking a little smile when he coughs up phlegm in the morning. She can efficiently deconstruct a crime scene, leavening any criticism of her simpler-minded colleagues with a distracting joke. While interrogating Shep, she can be good cop and bad cop all by herself and in the same sentence, and she's composed enough to not allow her aim to be discombobulated by scenes of carnage. Marge has perfect self-knowledge. She's going to be the sheriff in Brainerd with Norm and their growing family, eating bad food, solving less-grisly cases, and catching less vicious criminals. Where Jerry and Carl are plagued by doubt and shaky self-esteem, she knows exactly who she is and she's fine with it, and is therefore one of the most appealing characters ever put to film. Her only flaw is she thinks too much of people, which through her Mike Yanagita lunch and everything that follows, is remedied by the end credits. This experience will make her a little colder and a little more skeptical, but her core is unshakable.

I love Fargo. It's the complete package, alternately tense and funny and sad and intriguing with great lines and indelible characters. The spare score fits perfectly with the film, and is one of those rare scores that perfectly captures the film and informs the characters. It starts as something out of a fairy tale, turns into something more tragic, and peaks in this operatic fashion. Tellingly, the fairy tale portion is the only section played during Marge's introduction, as she's the heart and soul of the film and there's nothing tragic about her. Like Paul Bunyan impassively watching from the highway, Fargo's going to last forever. Go Bears! A

Bryan

4/11/2015 12:33:59 pm

23 Comments. I'm just in time :-/

My biggest beef with Fargo is the main character, Jerry, is irritating to watch. He's a bad liar and quivering man - not good traits. These traits also make for lackluster movies.

Marge Gunderson is the shining star of this movie. She's funny and calm - a delight on the screen compared to her surroundings.

You all speak of these themes and deeper meanings. I just don't get it. Maybe it's a lack of sleep thing, or maybe it's a Coen Brothers or Fight Club thing which I'm just not privy to.

C+

Cooker

4/18/2015 05:45:53 pm

I vaguely remember seeing this before. I think I was in college. I had given it a 3 on Netflix. After watching it again, my review would remain the same. (A 3 typically means: I enjoyed it, I was entertained, but chances are I’m never going to watch it again).

I enjoy a movie based on real events, but I had some minor issues with the pacing. It just felt rather sluggish at times. And nothing against people from up north, but those accents. AHHH! Poor Steve Buscemi. I feel like everyone, if anything about this movie, remembers the wood chipper. Well acted, good story, nothing incredibly spectacular for me. Grade: B

Shane

5/4/2015 04:43:54 am

I don't know what else to say other than this is a nearly perfect movie. I think with movies that are so good, it's hard to give a critique.

Paragraph gushing about Buschemi.

Paragraph gushing about Macy.

Paragraph gushing about McDormand.

Seriously, who couldn't go on about those performances?

I loved the world they set up. I thought the pacing was great. All of that normal stuff we talk about was excellent.

I was wondering, though, what makes this a dark comedy. There's really nothing funny about this movie. At all. It's pretty grim and otherwise mundane. What makes it funny are the accents. It's just so hard to take someone seriously with those accents. It takes skillful direction to be able to basically use one gag for 90 minutes and for it to continually pay off. Big Hero 6 does that with Baymax and it hides some serious flaws in that movie. But Fargo had no flaws otherwise, though it would have been more No Countryish without those dang accents.

There's one scene that keeps it from an A+ for me. It's the scene with her ex-boyfriend. It's a good scene and all, but it just doesn't fit for me. I get that we;re giving some characterization to Marge, but that scene seemed unrelated entirely.

A

FARGO

A-
3.74

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FARGO

A-3.74

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A-
3.74