- I love Minnesota, but I don't much care for Fargo. It's not that the film is terrible, of course - the acting and directing are quite good, and there's probably no better cinematic portrayal of an upper Midwest winter - but I just don't get the point. As far as I can tell, the entire exercise is just an excuse to see what happens when you throw a bunch of goofballs into an old-fashioned detective story plot. It's the same old Coen brothers joke, but they've told it before and better in other films.
- The story revolves around Jerry Lundegaard's (William H. Macy) harebrained scheme to stage his wife's (Kristin Rudrüd) kidnapping in an attempt to grift his tightwad of a father-in-law (Harve Presnell) out of some of his ample savings. Jerry is a simple man who, like so many of his fellow Minnesotans, seems friendly enough at first glance. That is, until you notice that he's knee-deep in kidnapping and fraud. More disturbing, however, is Jerry's sheer incompetence when it comes to such criminal matters. His fraudulent loan scheme, for example, seems to consist entirely of smearing the license plate numbers of some presumably fictional cars. Of course, that's nothing compared to his choice of kidnappers.
- Carl (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear (Peter Stormare) are the last people you would ever want to hire to do anything, let alone kidnap your wife. They remind me of those two dogs in the Looney Tunes cartoons, one strong and silent and the other one constantly yipping at him. Why would Jerry ever enlist these guys? Well, one imagines that a guy like Jerry doesn't have many contacts in the criminal underworld. At any rate, the two at least manage to nab Jerry's wife, but they leave behind a trail of evidence and even a few dead bodies in the process. Now it's up to Officer Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) to save the day.
- Marge and her husband Norm (John Carroll Lynch) number amongst the few genuinely likable characters in this, or any other, Coen brothers film. In true Minnesota fashion, they call each other 'hon' and cook each other eggs and Marge is even expecting her first child, doncha know? Anyway, while Norm spends his days painting ducks at home or fishing up at Mille Lacs, it falls to Marge to untangle the riddle of who killed those people up north, which she does with relative ease. After all, she's not exactly dealing with criminal masterminds, here.
- So why should we care about any of this? Well, that's a good question. Aside from Marge and Norm, both of whom are written and acted perfectly, my favorite parts of the film mostly involved references to White Bear Lake (Go Bears!), Embers, The Gophers, and Brainard. In other words, I miss living in Minnesota. Maybe I would have enjoyed the film more if it had consisted exclusively of local references in place of, say, a woodchipper massacre and a truly tangential subplot about a lonely man (Steve Park) who may or may not be a widow. Jesus Christ on a cross, you can leave that stuff in Fargo. As Marge puts it, "Well, I just don't understand it."
- Obviously not based on a true story.
- There is only one scene nominally set in Fargo, although it was filmed in NE Minneapolis.
- Bruce Campbell has a cameo on a soap opera, which is something.
