Movie #8

8: Fargo

Jerry Lundegaard hires two men to kidnap his wife so he can get his rich father in law to pay the ransom of $1,000,000. Once the ransom is paid the kidnappers will get $40,000 and Jerry gets the rest. That's the plan, but what happens is something totally different. Blood is shed when a cop and two innocent people are killed. Marge Gunderson is the Chief who investigates the murders. While Marge investigates, Jerry gets involved in deeper problems, ranging from financial troubles, to threats from the kidnappers.

A hilarious dark comedy film that was brilliantly acted and brilliantly written. But you'd never know it from the summary...in fact, it was misclassified as a thriller in the local video store in Strathmore. I consider Frances McDormand as Margie to be the best performance by an actress that I’ve ever seen. It sure makes a lot of fun of people from Minnesota and their accent, but the Coen brothers are Minnesota natives, so I suppose it’s fair play. An interesting piece of trivia is that none of Jerry's stuttering mannerisms were ad-libbed...they're all written right into the screenplay (see for yourself!)

Imagine me going to see this movie at the age of 11 with my parents close to Christmas. Now THAT's funny! I guess my mom thought the idea of people laughing at this movie was horrible since she thought it was based on a true story, but that's just a ruse at the beginning of the film...it all came from the Coen brothers' imagination.

Fargo was nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture and won two, including Best Actress for Frances McDormand. I still can't believe Fargo got beat out by that STUPID English Patient! I think that's a bigger crime than what took place in the movie!