Blood Simple

Year: 1984
Directed By: Joel and Ethan Coen
Written By: Joel and Ethan Coen

RYAN’S REVIEW

A couple of years ago Amber and I realized that there were several Coen brother films we had yet to see we started to watch them all in the order they were made.  So this was the one we began with as it is the first film made by the fantastic film making brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. This film didn’t disappoint us, in fact it excited us because it gave merit to our hunch that we had a lot to look forward to.  This is a low-budget movie, starring actors of little renown, but it is brilliant nonetheless.  From the moment it begins it is captivating and it really draws you in.  The Coens were born to make movies, they are writing/directing/producing/editing machines and they are so good at what they do. They have been doing it since I have been born and will hopefully continue to do so till I am an old man.

This story is a basic idea in reality.  A wife is having an affair with one of her husband’s employees and her husband hires a man to kill them.  It’s a story as old as stories get but the Coen brothers manage to do it like it’s the first time.  Watching this film you find yourself so sucked in that you would think it was the most original idea in history.  You would think the cast and crew were all A-list celebrities but they were rookies and nobodies all of them.  The Coen brothers were nobodies and you can tell by the obvious lack of budget.  Frances McDormand is a Coen brothers regular and wife actually, she is married to Joel Coen and they have enjoyed a great career together.  Both have had great success working together particularly with Fargo in which I think they both won Academy Awards.  Dan Hedaya has enjoyed a nice career of mediocrity but he does well playing a larger part in this movie.  M. Emmet Walsh has been around forever and been doing this forever, he can be difficult to understand at times in this film but he plays quite a character all the same.  The Coen brothers have peppered all their films with very colorful and interesting characters, P.I./hitman Loren Visser was the first of many.

I don’t think you can call any Coen brothers film their best because they have made too many that were great. While my favorite is The Big Lebowski I can’t call it their best, Fargo was great, Raising Arizona was awesome, and we can’t forget about No Country for Old Men, The Hudsucker Proxy, or Intolerable Cruelty. Yet there is this one as well, its name has to be brought up not only because it is their first movie but also because it could be suggested as their best. I think that were this movie made today it would be nominated for best picture and the likes, yet these days everything the Coen brothers do gets nominated and for good reason.

I hope you give this film a chance because it is worth your time and you will enjoy it.  I hope that I can encourage you to do what Amber and I did a year ago and watch all the Coen brother films.  They are great movies all of them and they keep getting better.

AMBER’S REVIEW

We do so love the Coen Brothers. This is an amazingly made movie, so simple and intriguing. They really like to create movies that are situational. They create these stories about amazing situations that you really only hear in crazy news in real life. This movie is eerie and creepy. This movie makes me think of No Country For Old Men. The scenery and the quietness of the movie is what really leads to the creepiness of it.

Ryan and I tried to live mundane lives, because really…any of the Coen Brothers movies could happen to anyone in the real world. If you have a rich father in law and you were on the verge of going broke, you may hire kidnappers like Fargo. And if you sleep with your husband’s co-worker, be wary because the plot of this movie could happen to you.

NEXT MOVIE: Blow (2001)