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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 32108
Released: August 15, 2000 |
| Our Price: $4.69 |
| Used Price: $2.73 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Leave it to the wildly inventive Coen brothers (Joel directs, Ethan produces, they both write) to concoct a fiendishly clever kidnap caper that's simultaneously a comedy of errors, a Midwestern satire, a taut suspense thriller, and a violent tale of criminal misfortune. It all begins when a hapless car salesman (played to perfection by William H. Macy) ineptly orchestrates the kidnapping of his own wife. The plan goes horribly awry in the hands of bumbling bad guys Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare (one of them being described by a local girl as "kinda funny lookin'" and "not circumcised"), and the pregnant sheriff of Brainerd, Minnesota, (played exquisitely by Frances McDormand in an Oscar-winning role) is suddenly faced with a case of multiple murders. Her investigation is laced with offbeat observations about life in the rural hinterland of Minnesota and North Dakota, and Fargo embraces its local yokels with affectionate humor. At times shocking and hilarious, Fargo is utterly unique and distinctly American, bearing the unmistakable stamp of its inspired creators. --Jeff Shannon
Fargo Reviews:
Red Snow 
2008-09-05 - "Fargo" is a guilty pleasure. There's lots of blood and gore & it shouldn't be funny! But when that little foot is sticking out of the wood chipper with the sock still on, it is hilarious as well as awful. Thus, "Fargo" is an excellent tragicomedy. Joel Coen was nominated for a Best Director Oscar and won the award at the Cannes Film Festival. He and brother Ethan won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay while the Chicago Film Critics Association named "Fargo" Best Picture. Frances McDormand plays the police detective Marge Gunderson and picked up the Best Actress Oscar for her efforts. Her performance is excellent, underplayed yet funny, particularly with that exaggerated Northern Midwest accent. Steve Buscemi is chilling as Carl who gets drawn in deeper than he wishes when his partner Gaear played by Peter Storemare lets loose his hair-trigger temper. William H. Macy was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the film and is despicable as the weak car salesman who puts his wife at risk. Harve Presnell plays his wealthy father-in-law with so much bravado that we think he deserves his place on the ground in the snowy parking lot. Steve Reevis who was in The Missing (Widescreen Edition) does a good job as the stoic mechanic Shep Proudfoot who can't seem to stay out of trouble. Stephen Park's role as Mike Yanagita is an impressive cameo as he follows an inappropriate late night phone call with an even more inappropriate restaurant meeting with Marge. We learn he is a liar and a stalker. However, this is the only part of the film that I can't quite figure out why it's there. It doesn't seem to further the story, but it remains one of my favorite scenes in the film. Roger Deakins was nominated for Best Cinematography, which is breathtaking with the snowy landscape, especially the red snow in the wood chipper scene. Roderick Jaynes was nominated for Best Editing. This is a film that remains high on so many people's lists because it combines humor and what should be a tragic tale of murder and betrayal. That it works is testament to the talents of the Coen brothers. It is a classic. Enjoy!
Fargo; some thoughts....
2008-09-03 - I first saw this film some 12 months ago. What more can be written about it I don't know. It's Coen Brothers and their work, in my book, is unparalleled. An excellent film; like all of their others!!!
Very Disappointed 
2008-07-13 - This was the worst movie I've ever seen!!! Every other word in this film was a cuss word. The murders were extremely brutal and graphic. There wasn't much of a plot and it was extremely boring. It depicts all the people from Minnesota as weird. The worst part was, I ordered a book off of a Christian category and this movie popped up as being recommended. There was absolutely no correlation between the two. My husband and I watched it one night while our children were gone. Thank goodness. We would have turned it off if they had been watching. I will be throwing this movie away. I wouldn't even give it to anyone.
Fargo - The Movie 
2008-07-08 - I was a latecomer to this movie, but late or not, the movie, though a little aged by 2008, is still a great action-drama. I finally purchased this movie for my partner, it being in her all-time top 20, though perhaps not in mine.
Who said crime was not fun?
2008-06-16 - Take a sordid crime story, but something really bleak, gross, more than anything you can think of as trashy, disgusting, sickening, etc and entrust the story to the Coen Brothers to make it a comic thriller and you might get some kind of funny, humorous and hilarious film with blood everywhere, victims everywhere, one million dollars playing hooky in some snow landscape, a pregnant sheriff that is loaded to the very brim and is still smiling and going though not running. And mind you they do not miss one detail. Neither the shot through the top of the skull and the blood geyser out of it. Nor the body in the wood chipper with one foot with its sock still on sticking out. Nor the meal of the sheriff: she is obviously expecting quintuplets, even maybe two sets of quintuplets. And the sheriff's husband is a painter: he paints stamps for the post office, I guess among other great projects. You will learn that DLR means Dealer. That's important. And what else? So much that you would get dizzy if I started quoting them all and you would have no surprise. And it is a true story. Crime for the dummies, I guess, crime made easy and pleasurable. A great moment of fun.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
