The movie Fargo, from Joel and Ethan Coen, is a Neo-Noir masterpiece with a stupid criminal plan gone wrong, deadpan black humor, and dumbly out-of-control violence.
That's a lot for the new TV series based on the movie to live up to. But based on the first season so far, the new series is off to a promising start.
Familiar plot elements from the movie are present: The snowy, white blank landscape of rural Minnesota; earnest, slow thinking small town cops; a hapless local businessman, Lester Nygard, who gets himself ensnared in a web of lies and criminal acts.
At the center of it all is a sinister figure -- a cold blooded contract killer named Loren Malvo, whose presence is like an amoral catalyst that triggers a chain of violent events wherever he travels.
The great theme of the Coen Brothers has always been their bleak, fatalistic view of humanity, and the misguided acts people undertake which lead inexorably to their own downfalls.
The Fargo TV series is faithful to that theme, offering a pitch black, quirky crime drama, and moments of wild, spontaneous violence that change all that follows.
Beach Rating: 4 Palm Trees
Thursday, April 17, 2014
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