Blood Simple (Director's Cut) [1984]

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2007-03-14 rating:
Coen's masterful debut with a shoestring budget...
Yep, Blood Simple is one of the darkest, rawest and bleakest films you will ever see. Along with "The Big Lebowski", "Barton Fink" and "Hudsucker Proxy", Blood Simple represents a DIFFERENT BREED of filmmaking: ironic, twisted, moody, seemingly indifferent to the welfare of its characters, and extravagantly aware of itself as a movie. This is the COEN-WAY of film-making!!!

I watched it three times and saw something fascinating each time. Coens have captured the essence of where this suspense with fully-fledged thrillers began. I should say that their cinematic debut (with a shoestring budget of $1.5 million) is a wonderful example of how to LET THE PICTURES TELL THE STORY. The ambiance (as in all Coen films) is second to none. The smoke-filled bar, woodgrain office with the ceiling fan spinning slowly, the seedy hotel, all amazing. They did really a good job of projecting that bleak, dismal look into the picture as the characters stumble their paranoid way through the story. There is no hero in the story and that is what makes it work. They are all overlapping and interlinked as the dirty pipes are under the sink! The movie is also filled with the little things that make a Coen brothers film unique. Watching it is like going on a ride. The camera is always on the go, creating a sense of motion in almost ever scene.

In essence, the plot is real simple: A greasy and sleazy bar owner deep in the heart of middle-of-nowhere Texas hires an even sleazier, primitively venal private eye to kill his wife and her paramour. But things do not turn out quite as planned. Nothing is simple as it seems as blood is involved!!! There are enough roller-coasters to keep a viewer guessing even after the movie is over. Especially, second part of the movie is a first-grade thriller with violent, bloody, suspenseful, and endless twists.

The Coens have streamlined Blood Simple for this re-release, deleting a couple snippets of dialogue whose absence is noticeable only because the cuts marking their removal are surprisingly abrupt. But virtually everything memorable in the film remains intact. Most importantly, the movie has been given a new digital stereo mix so that its carefully worked out sound effects - e.g. the tip of a shovel rasping over an asphalt highway - can work their full unsettling magic.

The last word: an absolutely fantastic film - one of the best I have ever seen. Dark entertainment at its best!

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Similar categories

Video . DVD & VHS . Categories . Crime, Thrillers & Mystery . All Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Format (binding_browse-bin) . DVD
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . BBFC Rating (intended_use_browse-bin) . 18
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Editions (feature_two_browse-bin) . Director's Cut & Extended Edition
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Region(feature_browse-bin) . Region 2
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Release Date (feature_three_browse-bin) . 1980 - 1989
Video . DVD & VHS . Refinements . Language (theme_browse-bin) . English

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