A BLAST FROM THE PAST FOR A CLASSIC : "BLOOD SIMPLE"

I hate to sound biased but the Coen Brothers are my favorite writer/director / producers ever. I have spoken of them before, and be warned, I definitely plan to speak of them again. And as you all know, most of their films make headlines, but you may not have heard of this one… I’m talking about Blood Simple, their first feature film. And anyone who saw that film saw them coming…
So, I hear you cry, what is the story-line, how does it go ? Well, actually it’s a pretty typical Coen Borthers film. You know what I mean, just cast your mind back to their other films. An innocent looking story begins. Then suddenly an unpredictable and often violent character enters the scene. Suddenly the story has gone in a direction you NEVER thought it would. And the true beauty of all this is that the movie is quality every time and you willingly go for it every time, if only just to see what the twist will be this time…
Well, this one’s no different, in story and in quality. I mean it got the grand prize at the Sundance film festival and that’s saying something for a first feature. At the beginning we have a simple matter of infidelity on our hands. Julian Marty is a particularly unpleasant man. He runs a bar in a small town and gives both his wife and his employees a hard time 24 / 7. His wife is called Abby, and unsurprisingly she is seeking affection elsewhere, namely in a bar worker called Ray. Julian Marty may be many things but a fool he is not. Soon he guesses there is trouble afoot and hires a private detective to confirm this. Once the affair is out in the open though, Abby moves out and gets ready to start a new life with Ray. Not so easy with Julian around. He contacts the detective again and asks him to do the one sensible thing he can think of – killing them both. The private detective however has a much better plan and is not afraid to put it into action. However, his decision has rather unexpected consequences…
As we all know, knowledge is power. The Coen brothers play unashamedly with this concept for the full 91 minutes. Throughout the film we are totally confused by who knows what and we are unable to guess what these people will do with the knowledge they have. The Coen brothers being the Coen brothers, they rarely react the way you think they will. The result is a arm-chair arm gripping nail biter from beginning to end. You’d be a fool to miss it; it will be a classic if it isn’t one already.