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A homespun, Deep South revenge story, Blue Ruin gives off a Coen Brothers feeling in its story, almost to the point where I could've been convinced it was directed by them. Instead, this little-seen indie thriller is directed by Jeremy Saulnier, who also has a promising horror film coming out later this year. This was a fairly interesting sophomore feature, and the true crime feeling the story has is what really kept me going in the film.
Blue Ruin is mercifully short, and I say that as a good thing because this film can be an extremely slow burn. I don't mind slow films in the least, and the action does pick up a few times, but the lack of a soundtrack and the stagnant camera angles gave the film a creeping, slow pace that helped build up the revenge plot.
My biggest issue with Blue Ruin was that I didn't find myself particularly caring about what happened to the characters. We aren't really given much reason to be sympathetic towards their respective causes, and while there shouldn't really be much of a reason to begin with, it felt necessary for at least a couple of the characters. Sure, they're given great motivations, but I couldn't find anything that made me interested in what was going to happen to them. If it weren't for some brilliant shots and the intriguing story, I may not have even bothered with this film in the first place.
However, I can say that Blue Ruin is one of the most unique crime films since Fargo. Sure, it has its flaws, but I still believe that this is at least a little under-seen. The protagonist's motives are clearly shown to us, but I wasn't given any real reason to care about what happens to him or any of the other characters in the film. They all felt like expendable wanderers, with no real motive driving their causes (even if we were shown reason to care). The slow burn that the plot moves at works to the film's advantage, for the most part, and felt appropriate for the setting and genre of the story. This is certainly a great hidden gem on Netflix that every crime fan should watch at least once. Maybe on a rewatch I'll even end up loving it more- chances are I missed something in this film that would've helped me understand it a little better.