Yes, this tale of a mistaken murder for hire, mixed in with a cheating wife, a professional killer on the hunt, and an overachieving private detective, all in a small dusty town in Texas is somewhat reminiscent of the style of the Coen brothers' movies, Blood Simple and Fargo, but is much, much better.
This movie flows better than those Coen movies, the characters are more sympathetically and realistically portrayed, and the story moves along at a brisk clip that takes you to all the logical conclusions of the original setting, as it also unwinds the mysteries and dark secrets held by these small town folks.
I never much liked the Coen movies as they tended to throw in way too many quirky slapstick stupid moments that seemed to mock the characters that they had created and just felt like not very funny comedic filler.
This movie doesn't do that - by the end of the movie it's possible to understand Ray's mind numbingly stubborn refusal to accept that his wife has been cheating on him - getting her, a beauty queen wife, was after all the greatest achievement of his otherwise utterly downtrodden and drab life.
His wife, Stacy-Lynn is forever reliving the greatest glory of her life, as the winner of the 2008 Beaux County Beauty Contest, and wants only to bring that feeling back to life again. The wide range of facial expressions she brings into this movie is hilarious on their own - from that brilliant beauty pageant smile to lips curled up in disgust.
Similarly, Skip the private eye, Harry the professional killer, and the LeDoux couple all have well fleshed out character arcs. Mrs. Le Doux in particular is a near carbon copy of so many other older Texas women I have met and just seeing her with her overly gracious hospitality interrupting the meeting inside the car in the car dealer lot was also really funny. Well played.
A funny and quite enjoyable movie to watch.
This movie flows better than those Coen movies, the characters are more sympathetically and realistically portrayed, and the story moves along at a brisk clip that takes you to all the logical conclusions of the original setting, as it also unwinds the mysteries and dark secrets held by these small town folks.
I never much liked the Coen movies as they tended to throw in way too many quirky slapstick stupid moments that seemed to mock the characters that they had created and just felt like not very funny comedic filler.
This movie doesn't do that - by the end of the movie it's possible to understand Ray's mind numbingly stubborn refusal to accept that his wife has been cheating on him - getting her, a beauty queen wife, was after all the greatest achievement of his otherwise utterly downtrodden and drab life.
His wife, Stacy-Lynn is forever reliving the greatest glory of her life, as the winner of the 2008 Beaux County Beauty Contest, and wants only to bring that feeling back to life again. The wide range of facial expressions she brings into this movie is hilarious on their own - from that brilliant beauty pageant smile to lips curled up in disgust.
Similarly, Skip the private eye, Harry the professional killer, and the LeDoux couple all have well fleshed out character arcs. Mrs. Le Doux in particular is a near carbon copy of so many other older Texas women I have met and just seeing her with her overly gracious hospitality interrupting the meeting inside the car in the car dealer lot was also really funny. Well played.
A funny and quite enjoyable movie to watch.