Part of Winter Classics
Desperate Minneapolis car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hatches an elaborate scheme to extort a ransom from his wealthy father-in-law by hiring two vicious but inept criminals (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife. When the pair panic and kill a state trooper, the very pregnant Minnesota police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) is sent in to investigate. As she uncovers the many pieces of Lundegaard’s ultimately doomed plot, the plan begins to unravel in horrific but typically hilariously dark fashion.
See also: Ethan Coen’s JERRY LEE LEWIS: TROUBLE IN MIND (Mon, Jan 15)
“The Coens are at their clever best with this snowbound film noir…. Even when events turn deadly, the Coens keep their emphasis on piquant weirdo details and let their mood remain impossibly light. FARGO is a crime tale in which somebody's foot is seen sticking out of a wood chipper. And the Coens can present that image so that its salient feature is the victim's white sock.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times (Mar 8, 1996) “Snow is associated with virginal innocence, but the snow of Fargo is drenched with guilt. David Lynch might have told the story of FARGO by making it unsolved and insoluble; Quentin Tarantino might have explained the sudden spasms of violence by making the culprits ingest a lot of cocaine or crack. The Coens make it more realist and more humanly sympathetic, and McDormand is perfect in the role.” —Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
