Fargo (1996)

Review By Dan Geddes

Fargo dramatizes how one small crime can snowball into a series of tragedies. Criminals are often not the smartest human beings, and the law of unintended consequences rules our world.

But it seems so simple. Jerry Lundegaard (Macy) is a Minnesota car salesman who really needs a big score. He owes his job to his wealthy father-in-law, Wade (Presnell), who bullies him and doesn’t trust him to partner with him in business. Jerry has already embezzled money from the car dealership, and needs to pay it back pronto. So he decides to hire some men to kidnap his wife, Jean (Rudrüd), so he can keep most of the ransom money himself when his father-in-law pays it out. That is the plan.

Nothing goes as planned. He hires two kidnappers Carl (Buscemi) and Gaear (Stormare), who are inexperienced and incompetent. Jean puts up quite a fight when they arrive to kidnap her. Then they drive around until a state highway patrolman pulls them over for their expired dealer tags. When the trooper finally notices Jean tied up in the back seat, Gaear shoots him in the face. Then a car slows down to see what happened, and witnesses the shot policeman, and Gaear chases them down and kills them.

At this point, after the three grisly murders, the local sheriff Marge Gunderson (McDormand) takes over the movie. She quickly analyzes the crime scene, and…