The Coens’ rereleased thriller about a pregnant
police chief investigating a bungled kidnapping is a noir without cynicism; a macabre black
comedy with purity at its core
Now rereleased for its 25th anniversary, Ethan and Joel Coen’s perfectly flavoured comedy-thriller Fargo has become an established classic noir. Or maybe noir-blanc, a tale of criminal wickedness and weakness in the vast, snowy-white landscapes of Minnesota and North Dakota. Since 1996, something in Fargo’s macabre black comedy – the Garrison-Keillor-meets-James-M-Cain approach – has proved fertile: it inseminated a streaming-TV property now spanning four seasons. But the original film now looks better than ever, and it’s down to its keeping the quirkiness relevant and in check (something the Coens maybe haven’t always been able to achieve), and its brilliance in making the forces of law and order look as interesting and funny as the bad guys.
There is an outstanding performance from Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson, a seven-months pregnant chief of police investigating the brutal slaying of a state trooper and two locals. These people have been killed by two grotesquely incompetent hoodlums, Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare), who were hired by weak and greedy car salesman Jerry Lundegaard, superbly played by William H Macy, his great, plaintive blue eyes radiating self-pity and impotent resentment. Jerry had engaged these guys to kidnap his blameless wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrüd), so that Jerry’s wealthy father-in-law, Wade (Harve Presnell), would spring for the million-dollar ransom, which Jerry would secretly collect for himself, allowing his two crooks a modest fee.