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203 comments in total

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61 out of 80 people found the following comment useful :-
Try to watch this without talking to the characters..., 21 April 2000

Author: William Ross from Atlanta, Georgia

I think this film, probably more than any other, causes me to talk to the characters on the screen in an exasperated way--something akin to the way you want to yell at the characters in a slasher movie not to run outside to investigate sounds.

The only difference is that this film is fantastic, whereas cheap slasher movies are not. Blood Simple is emotionally involving and the suspense is played to perfection. While the characters are completely clueless as to what has gone on around them, we know everything. What we don't know is what the characters are going to do next.

As in every Coen film, things quickly get out of control. Some people have commented that the characters here acted unbelievably, but I'd have to say that when you think about their situations, the reactions are completely compatible with the way the characters are set up. The problem is that nobody knows what's going on except the viewers.

Coen fans will notice many recurring themes from their other films (especially Fargo and The Big Lebowski) such as the use of headlights, passing motorists witnessing a crime, shower curtains and bathroom windows, detectives driving VW beetles, husbands hiring the wrong people to carry out a crime... I had a longer list in mind earlier while watching it but I've forgotten some. It's almost like these films all go together as a series of films depicting how similar situations would end up in different locations in America.

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51 out of 68 people found the following comment useful :-
Texas noir, 28 March 2000

Author: Jeff (spoonjef@aol.com) from L.A. CA

Blood Simple is pure Coens. There are the usual bag of cinematic tricks, the twisting storyline, the seamy characters, and the occasional droplet of dark humor. The story concerns a bar owner who thinks his wife is cheating on him. He hires a sleazy private investigator to find out, and when he learns the truth, he wants them dead. Trouble is, things get kind of complicated when a murder occurs. The film creates a palpable feeling of tension, where you don't know what to expect next. Half the fun of this film is trying to figure out what will happen. A true testament of the well sturctured nature of the film, is the fact that there are only four main characters, and they hold your attention till the very end. And in traditional film noir fanfare, all of these characters have some sort of sordid business to attend to. The Coens drew on their experiences on Blood Simple and made the similar, but very different, Fargo. Watch Blood Simple for a good old fashioned film noir that will keep you guessing.

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41 out of 61 people found the following comment useful :-
A Dark Little Gem, 12 September 1999

Author: gbheron from Washington, DC

The Coen Brothers first commercial film tells a noirish tale of murder, double-cross, and betrayal in small town America. A greasy small-town Texas saloon owner discovers his wife is having an affair with one of his bartenders. He hires the private detective that documented the affair to kill the couple. But the PI has different plans, and then everything starts going wrong, very wrong. The acting is great especially M. Emmett Walsh as the double-crossing PI. The direction and camera work presage the Coens subsequent work.

This movie is a treat of a rental if you can find it. It's worth looking for.

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40 out of 61 people found the following comment useful :-
amazing debut, 31 August 2004
Author: ginger_sonny from London, England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The Coen brothers' magnificent feature film debut

Scumbag private eye Walsh plans the perfect crime when he's hired by a Texan bar owner to kill his wife (McDormand) and her lover (Getz). But the ploy to fool his employer with mocked up photographic evidence goes spectacularly awry when his shortcut is discovered, and Walsh is forced to knock off the adulterous couple after all.

Jet-black, wickedly funny and driven by an ingenious plot, the film holds all the clues to the Coens' peerless future, including bizarre deaths, itching paranoia and Walsh's delicious performance of sweat-stained villainy.

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32 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
brilliant noir, 26 August 2004

Author: Robert Guenther (robt_chi@yahoo.com)

This film is the Coen brothers' homage to the great noir thrillers of the golden age. Cheating spouses, feckless private dicks, mistaken identities, a bundle of dirty cash are rendered to their bare essence in the mess of rotting fish sitting on Marty's desk. The film is notable as much for the audacity of the Coen brothers in getting it made as it is for its success in turning the broad, open expanses of west texas into a claustrophobia unknown even to Saddam in his spider hole. It appears the Coens made five minutes of the film to show to investors, though they had absolutely no idea what the rest of the film would look like. They basically sold the mood of the film, and their efforts bore fruit. The film established the Coen brothers as a creative force and Frances McDormand as a rising art house star whose journey would eventually garner Oscar for the Coens' "Fargo." I rate it highly for visual appeal, intelligent story and good sheer suspense and terror.

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38 out of 61 people found the following comment useful :-
Memorable Modern Noir, 8 November 2005

Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

This was the Coen Brothers first movie and I think it might rank second-best to more-famous "Fargo."

This is suspenseful neo-noir (modern-day film noir) filled with fun direction by the Coens: low camera angles, closeups, concentration of sounds such as the whirring of an overhead fan, some dramatic pauses, strange characters and even stranger events taking place. The only thing missing I'd like to have is 5.1 surround sound.

Warning: some bloody scenes in here are downright gross, but they sure produce some memorable scenes.

Character-wise, Dan Hedeya proves to be the toughest man to kill I've ever seen in a movie! Frances McDormand is young and looks pretty, the best I've ever seen her look. John Getz's character is strange and sometimes to frustrating to watch and Emmet Walsh is outstanding at playing the sleazy private detective. Those four, along with Samm-Art Williams, comprise almost all the speaking parts in this film.

This is an involving movie. Once started, you're hooked on this strange story. I wish the Coens would have made more movies like this.

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40 out of 69 people found the following comment useful :-
hilarious. astounding., 6 January 2003

Author: T Y from United States

Ugh. So much griping about what this movie isn't! "It's not a good thriller" "It's not suspenseful" "I like Fargo better" Bring your genre recognition and creative constraints to movies whose scripts never passed through a working brain. There are plenty to choose from.

Thriller? mystery? love triangle..? Who cares? This is simply a good film. I don't care if I can tell you what genre it is. If you like passive viewing this isn't for you. When you kvetch about B.S., all it does is indicate you were a late-comer to the Coens and saw them in non-chronological order after seeing Fargo. I'm so sorry for you.

Boring performances? Not in my opinion. I'm relieved (delighted!) that it's not an "actors" movie with people method-ing up the plot. And I certainly don't watch it to vicariously feel anyones emotions. Pricey & needy name actors would have ruined this movie. (As in Ladykillers) Who cares if they're subdued? It's not about the perfs, it's about the thought you as a viewer bring to it. This is a "post-Method" movie and it's extremely clever and deep.

Plot too intricate? It's less complex than it appears, and much easier to understand than some piece of convoluted tripe like Mission Impossible. SPOILER: The double-cross begins in mid-conversation in M. Emmett Walsh's VW bug.

For me, the pacing is perfect. Any ten minutes of this movie is more thoughtful than plenty of other movies with frantic activity trying to hide their facile nature (Minority Report, O Brother, etc. etc. ad nauseum.) And I do not enjoy any of the fussy, formulaic follow-ups the Coens made after this.

The joy of this movie is watching characters 'complete the picture' incorrectly, and then take action in a way that will be painfully consistent with their assumptions. The movie paints the world as a chilly machine with parts set in motion by human idiocy, and implicates a God indifferent to all manner of human suffering. All of which should sound familiar to anyone who's read Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger.

The spare conceits of this movie are perfectly scaled. It has a minimalist score with some very nice music cues; and three or four sweet camera tricks so quietly inserted that you might miss them, which make me smile.

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23 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
A stylish film noir…, 11 December 2005

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The basic fact (a Texan bar-owner is betrayed by the private detective he hires to murder his faithless wife and her lover) is transformed by an imaginatively tortuous script into a clever, almost farcical study of humans forever misinterpreting each other's actions…

While the audience understands what is happening, the characters, their perceptions distorted by suspicion, fear and jealousy, strike in the dark and destroy friends, enemies and themselves… Murder, too, is a dirty, protracted business – one character is even buried alive – just as, in the Coens' irredeemably seedy Texas, the corrupt private eye (marvelously played by M. Emmett Walsh) sweats continuously…

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42 out of 74 people found the following comment useful :-
Good Study, 25 January 2005
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

The Coens are like Soderbergh, they alternate between risky adventures and "commercial" projects. Only in the Coens' world, it is not so much a matter of commercialism but a matter of respect for the genre. Half of their films are profoundly layered, with a typical genre at the "bottom" and all sorts of annotation and commentary in layers on the top.

Its the same in abstract painting, the real stuff that is: to be good at distancing yourself from representational art, you have to master it before you leave it. So the Coens work on mastering a genre before they extend it (and goof all over it).

Naturally, their first project is a straight genre picture. Naturally, it is good (even excellent in its class), if not particularly novel.

Noir is an abused term. I think there are only two notions that are necessary. The first is the existence of a capricious fate, producing coincidences that toy with humans (usually humans). The second is the placement of the viewer (via the camera) in some sort of conspiracy with this fate. In some nefarious way, the viewer _causes_ some of these.

You'll have to decide whether a noir film made after the period in which it was developed can be enjoyed in the same way. It does necessarily carry some distance, the study rather than the intuition. But the hardest thing in noir is ending. These guys do it as perfectly as I know: the last vision of a dying man, watching something inconsequential but inevitable.

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31 out of 54 people found the following comment useful :-
A great early Cohen film where the claustrophobic heat and tension seep from the screen, 27 May 2002
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

Abby is cheating on husband Marty with his employee Ray. Unbeknownst to them, Marty has had the pair followed and caught in the act by an odious private detective. With Marty rejected he turns to the detective with an offer of money to kill the cheating lovers and dispose of the bodies. The detective accepts and, with Marty out of town to ensure an alibi, the plan seems so clear and simple to execute. However, where blood is involved, nothing ever runs smoothly or simple.

Watching No Country for Old Men recently put me in mind of Blood Simple and gave me an excuse to watch it again for the first time in about a decade. I was glad that I did because, although it is very slimmed down, all the themes and standards that continue with the Cohen brothers down the years. The film is a modern noir-ish crime thriller with a contained set of circumstances bringing death and ruin to all involved. The story is engaging but it does have holes within it but they are not serious enough to affect the flow. What carries it through everything though is the visual style and feel given to the film by the Cohen's. From the opening sequence in the car to the ever present roar of the incinerator to the sweating, cackling presence of the detective, the sparse dialogue just doesn't matter because of the delivery. As with No Country, you can feel the oppressive heat and tension in each scene and it makes for a satisfying film.

The cast play to this heat and tension with contained but tense performances. The standout is Walsh, whose sweaty moral void is the heart of the film. Hedaya is almost as good in a smaller role. The two "lead" characters suffer a little from being less interesting but nevertheless both Getz and McDormand are good. Blood Simple is a tight and short film with limited dialogue and little in the way of quick action. However what it does have is a wonderful sense of Texas and crime. The slow pace adds to the claustrophobic feel of heat, which in turns adds to the tension and the constant presence of death in the air. Amazing to think the Cohen brothers started getting it so right so early in their careers.

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