By That You Mean

I understand that this is a remake of a movie that is based on a book, but truly, anything that the Coen Brothers touch turns to gold.  Other than the overly loud trailer that I have seen at every film for the past 3 weeks, I knew very little about this film. I resisted the urge to google the hell out of this and ruin it for myself, and thank god, because this movie, like the revenge it is based on, is best served cold. I am not sure that last sentence makes as much sense as I wish it did…

The story follows young Maddie Ross as she pairs up with two unlikely men in pursuit of her father’s killer.

Within 2 minutes, I was struck by how…authentic and chronologically accurate the accents and mannerisms were. My initial reaction is always to be annoyed. I did not want to sit through 110 minutes of fake old timey frontier talk. But actually, I leave it to the Directors to use this often ridiculous medium so effectively that within 4 minutes I forgot to be annoyed and was just engrossed. Truly I was sucked in to this movie. There were many pitfalls (aside from the accents) that if left in the hands of  rookies, could have been fumbled. The pace was slow, but built suspense instead of dragging. The voice over was effective in providing background information without being used as a cheap way to build plot or develop characters. The jokes were effective in building character relationships instead of breaking up the plot. I truly enjoyed this movie.

Overall Grade- 85%