Coen Brothers month: Blood Simple

A review by Brooks Rich

The Coen Brothers debuted in 1984 with the bleak and gritty Texas noir, Blood Simple. A rich man hires a private investigator to kill his wife and nothing goes right. A lot of the elements the Coens would come to be known for are in this film, most importantly the simple crime going wrong in almost every conceivable way. The husband character is the framework for Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo, even though Jerry is more a hapless loser than the cold-hearted bastard the husband is in Blood Simple.

There's a strange sense of morality in the Coen's films. Crimes aren't always solved or avenged in the legal sense unless it's a full-on battle between good and evil like in Fargo, but the wicked are often punished. For example, the killer in True Grit is not brought to trial and hanged but he is killed, punished for his sin of murder. The same is true for Blood Simple. No one faces justice from the police or courts but rather justice in a more cosmic sense.

Blood Simple is a great film but it is slightly dated. The story work is solid but the Coen's haven't quite found their visual eye yet. It's perfectly fine though because it works as a nasty piece of neo-noir. Blood Simple is not a happy film. It is one of the Coen's bleaker films and while it is a good movie, I think it is well regarded more because it's their first film. The second film they did would be much stronger.

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