Blood Simple (1984)

Review:

The Coen Brother’s “Blood Simple” has all the trappings we’ve come to associate with a Coen brothers’ film. It would appear this, their first film, has served as the prototype for the great films to come. In “Blood Simple” we have the wide open country (“No Country for Old Men”), portentous headlights emerging from the night (“Fargo”) we have ominous ceiling fans (“Barton Fink”) and terrible deaths (“Miller’s Crossing”) and of course, we have a simple crime that goes terribly wrong (“Raising Arizona,” “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” “No Country,” “Burn After Reading”).

I should now confess that the Coen Brothers always rub me the right way. Their quirkiness and defiance of expectations send tingles down my spine that put me in a good mood, no matter how peculiar the material. Just like with Kubrick, Woody Allen, Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, and Fellini I can always find something to like in their films.

“Blood Simple” starts off like so many other movies and then diverts and meanders into a plot that’s hard to see coming but easy enough to follow. Marty (Dan Hedaya), a jealous bar owner, hires Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh), a private detective of questionable moral integrity, to spy on his wife Abby (Frances McDormand). Abby is having an affair with one of Marty’s employees, Ray (John Getz). When Visser informs Marty of Abby’s infidelity, Marty hires him to kill the lovers. He offers Visser ten thousand dollars and it is an offer Visser can’t turn down. That is the set up and to elaborate any more on the plot would be a disservice to the film - except to say that Visser has a plan of his own.

In some ways, this film reminded me of Sam Raimi’s “A Simple Plan” (1998) (coincidentally the Coen’s got their start working for Raimi). Both films are about how a series of independently motivated actions can add to a complete and encompassing massacre. I suppose for that matter, “Fargo” and “No Country” are that way too.

But as with all Coen brothers what makes this movie so good is the particulars of the camerawork and the oddities of the characters. The camera glides all over, sometimes smoothly, sometimes rough, sometimes along the floor or a street, and other times at eye level. It takes on strange yet affecting angles, like underneath a sink looking up or above a ceiling fan looking down.

M. Emmet Walsh as Visser comes off as a striking villain. He sometimes seems a simpleton, which makes us like him, and sometimes a vicious killer, which makes us fear him. One of his greatest amusements in life seems to be a toy woman, dangling from his rearview mirror, who’s breasts light up when turned on. Can such an easily amused man be a ruthless killer? You bet.

“Blood Simple,” for a first film is impressive. It is beyond apprentice work. While the Coens would go on to make better, even stranger movies, “Blood Simple” has a memorable quality all its own.

Rating:
On a scale of one to Casablanca, this film is a “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974).

Rationalization:

Well, sometimes people just make bad decisions. I didn’t mention much about the main character Ray in the review, but suffice it to say, he makes a very bad decision in “Blood Simple” – one that will change the rest of his life and the course of this movie. The scenes in which he makes this decision are the best scenes in the film, wrought with suspense, horror, and evocative pity. We understand why Ray does it, but still…

It makes you think that God just likes to mess with some people.