Blood Simple

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ron b This skillful low budget film shows you why the Coens earned the trust of the studios and their lasting success. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/15/24 Full Review Dani G There's a reason why this film is a cult classic. Simple but efficient, a great opera prima from the Coens Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 04/22/24 Full Review Tom F Almost perfect storytelling. Los Bros Coen hit the ground running. M. Emmet Walsh at his best, this rewatch camer a few days before his death. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 03/29/24 Full Review Leaburn O Solid thriller with some brutality thrown in. Pre the days of the Coen brothers having forged their singular style though there were Fargo elements to the film. It was quite good but a bit plodding in spite of the short runtime. Watched on Film4. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/12/24 Full Review Wayne K The Coen Brother's have had incredibly illustrious careers, producing some of the most acclaimed films of the 20th and 21st century. But everyone has to start somewhere, and for Joel & Ethan, that place was Blood Simple. Even from the beginning, they already had a good idea of what style they were going for, and as such the movie feels much like some of their later, more successful projects. Its budgetary limitations are obvious in areas such as editing, where some scenes end very abruptly, like they didn't have enough money to keep shooting so they decided to end things early. Which is weird, because other scenes and shots go on for a long time, which I felt was done as a way to ensure the movie reached feature length. Few people consider it their favourite Coen Brothers film, a sentiment very much shared by the directors themselves. It's got a plot that twists and turns, dropping little clues here and there and building up to a fitting climax, and while some of it is confusing, its satisfying when all is said and done. There's been more confident, polished and well-rounded debuts, but it's still definitely worth checking out. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/08/24 Full Review Jeff M If for no other reason, this nifty film noir deserves to be seen as the starting point for the Coen Brothers - one of the most important filmmaking duos in motion picture history. And even though this is their first endeavor, you can already notice and appreciate their extraordinary talent and love for filmmaking. What we have here is an intimate thriller with a handful of main characters, none of whom we fully understand and none of whom we fully trust. It's a gloriously lean and economic adventure, and we don't quite understand who is doing what to whom until the very end - and even then, we have to take a minute to question everything we've seen and experienced. The filmmaking here is impeccable and the suspense amazingly palpable. Like Hitchcock, the Coens are playing all 88 keys of the piano here without us fully realizing it. And what fun there is in watching a young McDormand - now a two-time Oscar winner and one of the most amazing actresses in modern cinema! It doesn't reach the heights of future endeavors such as FARGO, which is one of the great films ever made, but it's definitely a forecast of the feast to come. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/11/24 Full Review Read all reviews

Blood Simple

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