Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Fargo’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

I think it is safe to say that we go through our lives trying to do our best to not hurt people either emotionally or physically. Granted, there are people who wake up in the morning full of anger in their heart and they spend the rest of their day wreaking havoc on the world, but the average man and woman simply go about their day.  

Granted, our best hopes to not hurt people don't always work out. We say things we don't mean, or sometimes our fists come into play. But there is often times a reason that leads to those moments of weakness. Sometimes, the reasons we hurt other people are vast and we feel we have no other way but to inflict pain to solve our own sticky mess and in 1996, the Coen brothers took a little time to examine this darker part of our psyche with the brilliant motion picture, Fargo. 

Jerry Lundegaard is truly an average joe. He has a wife, a child and a solid job given to him by his father in law. In fact, he seems like a pretty stand-up guy. But what few know about Jerry, is that there are some skeletons in his closet. Not only is he hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, he is becoming a criminal mastermind...sort of. You see, Jerry is planning to have his lovely wife kidnapped and held for ransom so that he can get enough money from his wealthy father in law to get himself and his family out of debt. But what seems like a simple plan is about to change Jerry's life and the lives of everyone he knows when murder comes into play.

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It's hard to truly categorize Fargo's exact genre, simply because this movie mixed so much into one ninety-minute run. It was part murder mystery, part black comedy and every second of it works. It starts with the cast of course, simply because William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi and Frances McDormand are beyond incredible in this film, but I think what truly makes this motion picture so memorable is the simple fact that it is an incredibly dark character study.  

I say that, because there are only two major characters in this film that are worth a damn as human beings, Marge Gunderson and her husband. She is a brilliant detective and he is just a good man who takes good care of his pregnant wife. Everyone else however...are pieces of garbage. I mean come on, Jerry Lundegaard actually schemes to have his wife kidnapped for cash. It doesn't get more screwed up than that. In fact, Jerry is a weasel through and through and more or less could give a crap about human life in general if it doesn't serve a purpose for him.  

As I said before, the film really does take an in depth look at the reasons we hurt our fellow man, and quite frankly, it offers no easy answers as to why.  In this case it all comes down to money. Oddly enough, the solution to Jerry's problem is presented by one of the men he hires when Carl Showalter simply asks Jerry why he didn't ask his father in law for the money, an idea that could have changed the film's plot but instead reinforces its point. That while we have our reasons for what we do, we don't always think about the consequences of our actions and that alone makes this a wonderful film worth watching.

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