Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

floydreese This was where the illustrious career of the Coen Brothers began. Blood Simple has all the ingredients of the brother's style right from the small town setting to strange offbeat characters and a plot that cannot be predicted until the end credits start to roll. Featuring a young Frances Mcdormand this is one movie that you need to see if you want to start watching directors that are mainstream yet offbeat.

replica04 100% flawless texas grit and grain from the play button. Deadly sinister, plot thickens like cured flower rosin post press, only this looks better Never gets old. Timeless piece by the brothers to be reckoned with. Outstanding performances all round and dramatic camera work to top it. 10 out of 10 and I'm not selling nothing!

Filipe Neto This is another "film noir" signed by the Cohen Brothers, who sign the direction and the script. One more on a sizable list, as they like the "noir" style and a clever twist of cynical irony. However, this film isn't new and I don't know to what extent it will age well, or it will turn into a minor work of Cohens' cinematography.The film has many interesting aspects, mainly in the most technical questions. Cinematography is very elegant and cleverly uses the light and shadow, high contrast, washed colors and car headlights. Although I don't have any data in my hands right now, I dare to hypothesize that they have used wide-angle lenses during filming. I'm just guessing. However, the main problem of this film is the script.The whole plot is based on a love triangle between Abby, her lover, Ray, and her husband, Marty, who decides to kill them, driven by jealousy, corrupting a private investigator to do the dirty work. But things end up going bad for Marty and everything gets complicated, as the plot gives several twists. The virtual absence of soundtrack, the focus on dialogue, the atmosphere of latent suspicion between characters and their moral ambiguity are characteristics that we can see, and that are usual in "noir" movies. This is all very good and would have been even better if there weren't problems in between: to begin with, the film takes too long to engage and arouse our interest. In fact, the beginning is too slow to have a significant initial impact. Dialogues can also be very boring. Finally, there is another problem: it is absolutely loaded with holes. If I were a CSI technician, it would have been the quickest and easiest criminal investigation of my career.About as the actors, I liked them overall, but I was not impressed. John Getz and Frances McDormand, despite being the main actors, didn't shined, doing only what they had to do. Dan Hedaya had the task of giving life to an obnoxious but fundamental character, and I liked his work. However, I think M. Emmet Walsh deserves more prominence than them. It's through the cynical and obtuse look of his character that we see the film (he works, partly, as a narrator) and it's he who assumes preponderance in the way events unfold, giving him a protagonism that would hardly have had if wasn't the case. The actor really struggled, so the character can almost be absolutely repellent by embodying, in a visual and palpable way, his dubious morality and lack of scruples.In short, this is an interesting worth-watching movie but may not please most of the audiences, as it's rather slow and takes it's time to develop. However, being one of the first Cohen's films, it's a milestone for their careers.

dougdoepke Highly imaginative film that should please cynics and maybe existentialists. No need to echo the serpentine plot provided by others. What impresses me is how each of the four main characters is undone by their own self-enclosed world. Ultimately, each has his or her own fumbling reality that trust, love, or even hate can't bridge. Take Ray's love for Abby. Ultimately, he's undone by a web of conflicting emotions resulting from his own inability to bridge out from himself. In short, he's trapped in his own reality by a lack of trust in her and her steadfastness. At the same time, she herself flounders inside her own unstable perceptions. Anyhow, the neo-noir is done in superbly stylistic fashion that carries the storyline even when pacing slows or developments become murky. And catch that barren Texas countryside that mirrors the characters' predicament. Moreover, the performances from a bunch of then unknowns is accomplished, especially from the slimy Walsh. All in all, I wonder how many other brilliant indies have been thwarted for commercial reasons, particularly during Hollywood's fabled "Golden" period. Fortunately, the Coens persevered.