Fargo

Rating:
Summary: Fastest 2 hours I ever spent
Review: I absolutely love this movie. I have seen it many times and find new enjoyment in it every time I watch it. I love it's playful dimentia and good humor. The acting is fantastic and realistic. The Coen Bros. strike again with another beautiful-to-watch movie and a mesmerizing screenplay. Check it out!

Rating:
Summary: What ''I says''
Review: Fargo is a masterpiece. The Coen brothers couldn't have done a better job in directing this. The acting is brilliant. William H. Macy did a chilling role as playing the unhonest Jerry Lundergard. In this film, Mr.Laundegard pays money to two unprofessional criminals, to make them kidnap and murder his wife. Just when Mr.Laundergard takes his vacation, the whole thing goes horribly wrong. There are alot of movies like this one, which mix comedy and thriller, like Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, etc.

But Fargo is the best. It should've gotten an academy award for best picture. Buy it as soon as possible.

Rating:
Summary: Fargo smashes, then redefines tragic/comedy
Review: It starts with the music. A folk melody - a minor-key dirge played on a harp, then a fiddle. It evokes a desolate, hard-frozen landscape. The words on the screen tell us what follows is a true story (although it isn't). And we know it's going to be tragic, because it speaks of both the dead and of the survivors. The music swells, the melody crying out full-throated from the orchestra, with dignity and moral outrage, as if saying "How DARE someone do such a thing!". A car emerges from the white nothing of a lonely stretch of Northern highway, a harbinger of evil forming on a nearly featureless canvas. It is Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), the small, petty man who sets the tragedy in motion. He is driving to the meeting that will result, eventually, in a lot of suffering and death.

A "serious" film could not have set a gloomy, solemn tone any better, but "Fargo" has twisted humor in store for us. Yes, the film morphs, strangely, into a dark comedy. This is what most reviewers fixate on - the goofy accents, the wierdly sincere homespun dialogue, the droll, sardonic twists. But that genuine sense of despair and loss is hardly ever mentioned, and it hangs over the entire film like a pall. It's what really makes "Fargo" resonate - deeply.

Example: Jerry, utterly frustrated by an unsuccessful attempt to get money from his venomous father-in-law, pitches a fit alone in the parking lot. It's funny, watching him hit his car with an ice-scraper and make strangled sounds like a petulant 5-year old. Funny right up until three innocent people die because of his hare-brained scheme to extort the money instead. Before it's over, the body-count will more than double.

The violence in the film is never played for laughs. It's straightforward, brutal, and uncompromized, even when it gets downright bizarre (hint: it involves a wood-chipper). The characters may be eccentric and funny, the social conventions they live by satirized, but the core story is about greed leading to needless death. That's NOT funny, and the Coens (writer Ethan and director Joel) are wise enough to play that part straight.

For all the fun "Fargo" has with its screwball characters, it also has a deep-down respect for them, especially the very-pregnant Brainerd police chief Marge Gundersen (Oscar-winner Frances McDormand). She says a lot of things that make us laugh. By the end of the film, though, she makes a speech that seems profound when by all rights it should be trite; inane. It's no more than the simple truth, spoken plainly:

"There's more to life than a little bit of money," she lectures a murderer in the back of her patrol car, "Don't you know that?"

Any film that could make that sort of line seem like a powerful emotional catharsis has got to be brilliant.

"Fargo" is.

Rating:
Summary: Yah
Review: A deadpan drama about mundane, boring people with grand, impractical schemes, 'Fargo' seemed extremely small and slight on first viewing, but it grew on me over time, and now I realise that it's a great film. The Coens, untouched by the sensationalism that, say, Joel Schumacher would have brought to this tale, have made a masterpiece - a short, sharp tale of intrigue, murder, and unusual accents.

Utterly unlike mainstream Hollywood cinema, this largely music- and style-free drama concerns a small-minded, marvellously whiney character played with panache by William H. Macy, as he crafts an ill-thought-out plot to extort money from his father-in-law. It all goes terribly, inevitably wrong, and casual brutality escalates into murder after murder. It all seems very normal, and down-to-earth, and the murders are more shocking for it.

Amongst the quiet mayhem Frances McDormand's character seems like an oasis of calm

I'm stopping right here, sorry. I used a cliche. 'an oasis of calm', indeed. I'm weak, weak and pathetic.

Anyway, this is a great film, one that initially makes you wonder what the fuss was about, but it sticks with you afterwards and you appreciate it.

Rating:
Summary: Ignore the Hype.
Review: When I was a small child meany of our Summer vacations where spent in Minnisota, Bernaed to be exact.

This film is a farse.

Altho funny facuality is left by the way side.

All People in Minnisota are not stupid nor do they all speak with Swedish accents.

And Harp Music for an intro?

I personally think 3 Stars is a little high however the technical stuff is great.

Not worth a buy, Rent it!

Rating:
Summary: Hated it.
Review: I'm from North Dakota and we don't talk like that. We don't dress up in heavy parkas when there isn't a lot of snow on the ground. We do have central heating, so the scene where Marg and her husband were under all those quilts looked ridiculous. Why was the Japanese character in this movie at all and why did he talk like a Norwegian great grandpa? And I have NEVER heard anyone under age 70 say "Darn tootin'."

Rating:
Summary: Fargo a good movie? Your're darn toot'in!
Review: The midwest with it's neighborliness and value system take it on the chin in this crime-drama which to date is the Cohen Brothers best. In FARGO, carsalesman Jerry (William H. Macy) is in a bind for cash. An employee has put him in contact with two inept ne'er do wells (Steve Bucsemi-always good to see him, and Peter Stormare) to kidnap Jerry's wife so that Jerry's stingy father in law can cough up a large ransom that Jerry will split with the kidnappers, and as down payment on the deal, Jerry has provided them with a new car that he stole off his own lot. All goes well until the kidnappers are pulled over for a minor offense and end up killing the patrolman and two passers by who were witnesses. Shortly after, pregnant police woman Marge (Frances McDormand) is called upon to investigate the murders. Very quickly, Marge puts the pieces together and Jerry's world and plan collapse around him in frustration and panic. Don't take this movie as a comedy, your ability to laugh will rely on how much you can laugh at the character's behavior and quaint accent-which does grate after a few viewings. Only one spot in the movie falters, and that is a side story with Marge visiting an old highschool friend, but it doesn't steal away from the film much. FARGO to sum it up in a nutshell is a terrific film and should have been best picture of 1996. No other movie like it drew me in and kept me interested quite like it. Do not dismiss it as an arthouse film, see it as soon as you can.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: Fargo is a brilliant movie! The casting is right on cue.. William H Macy is wonderful as a fidgety, nervous car salesman. Frances is wonderfully believable as a very pregnant cop.. The story is so full of suprises, it's fun to watch over and over! It's also so atmospheric, you're not at all suprised to see a poster of the "Accordian King" on the little boy's bedroom door. :o) Fargo is a movie that has to be seen in its entirety to be fully appreciated - so don't let the people's accent get on your nerves! :-p You will love this movie!

Rating:
Summary: Greatest movie of all time ! Well...
Review: "FARGO" is a great movie. The Cohen brothers did a great job romancizing a true history. The acting is very good. But this movie also gives us a clue about how strange Hollywood sometimes is... The main actress won a OSCAR only by saying "O, YÁ, O, YÁ" all movie long...

Rating:
Summary: Excellent film has a Tarantino-esk quality to it
Review: Let me start by saying, this film is in no sense of the word a "comedy." That includes "Dark Comedy," and "Black Comedy." Best film of the year, hands down. One of the better independant films of the decade too. The entire cast turns in the award deserving performances that are commonplace with films that have this sort of reputation. The lead character, McDormand, is upbeat/sweet/and quirky. The rest of the characters are about the equivalent of those in a Tarantino film (Buscemi especially) and the overall final product is an intriguing blend of action and drama. The setting for this film has also been dying to be satired as well.