Fargo (1996)

In the Coen Brothers' masterpiece, a self-proclaimed "homespun murder story," it defied categorization by being a conglomerate: a film noir (with stark white vistas and backdrops), a satirical comedy, a suspenseful crime drama, and a violent mystery thriller. Although the film was named Fargo - the location of the initial scene in North Dakota - most of the film's action was set in Minnesota (the towns of Brainerd and Minneapolis) and on the road to and from Fargo, during approximately a week of time in late January and early February. None of the film was shot in the city of Fargo.

Its tagline was: "A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere."

The dramatic crime drama's (fictional) story could be boiled down to a hapless extortion scheme and kidnapping plan that went horribly wrong, pecuniary greed, a triple homicide (a highway patrolman and two innocent passersby), two contrasting families (the male-dominated Lundegaards and the female-dominated Gundersons), and even the corruptible effects of fast food and TV watching.

The two leads pitted against each other were:

• Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) - a desperate, indebted and inept car salesman who set up an ill-fated, bungled plan by hiring two dangerous henchmen to have his wife kidnapped and ransomed in order to extort his wealthy father-in-law (who owned the car dealership)
• Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) - a level-headed, smart and very pregnant local Police Chief from Brainerd, MN who persistently pursued Jerry and the criminal case

Its critical and box-office success also came with seven Academy Awards nominations, with two Oscar wins: Best Original Screenplay (Joel and Ethan Coen), and Best Actress (Frances McDormand). On a budget of $7 million, the film grossed revenues of $24.6 million (domestic) and $60.6 million (worldwide).

The film was followed 18 years later by a spin-off and continuation TV anthology-series titled Fargo that aired for 11 seasons (with multiple episodes each season) from 2014 to 2024. The first and subsequent seasons featured an all-new cast of characters in a "true crime" murder story about a deadly hitman, while it maintained the Coen Brothers' dark and trademark humor, the simple folk of the north Midwest (Minnesota) locale, crime-fighting, and intriguing, unpredictable, and well-executed scripts.

• in the opening credits sequence set in January of 1987, images (beautifully filmed by Roger Deakins) were of a frozen, snow-blanketed Fargo, ND and a car (with a new tan Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera in tow) emerging in the white-out blizzard conditions and making its way along the deserted highway, toward an inn (with a bar and restaurant)

Car Salesman: Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy)

Jerry's Two Hired Kidnappers: (l to r): Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare)

• the desperate, financially-impotent, disheveled and indebted Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), executive sales manager of a car dealership, met up inside the inn with two low-life losers (and soon-to-be hired killers): Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) - a talkative, slimeball, nervous and embittered individual, and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) - a violent, tall, blonde, psychotic, quiet and grim man prone to outbursts; he offered them the new tan Cutlass Ciera and cash ("the new vehicle plus forty thousand dollars") to kidnap his own wife, Jean Lundegaard (Kristin Rudrüd) in their home in Minneapolis, MN; she was the daughter of Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell) who owned Jerry's car dealership Gustafson's Motors in Minneapolis; the ransom demand was to be for $80,000, to be split 50% between the kidnappers and Jerry after the ransom was paid (and the wife was safely returned without bloodshed)
• it was also implied that Jerry was embezzling money from the car dealership and also falsifying car sales documents in order to fill in the gaps of the depleted dealership bank accounts; the dealership was being investigated due to accounting irregularities, and Jerry was close to being caught
• Jerry's devious character was illustrated in a scene where he browbeat and scammed customers at the dealership - husband and wife (Gary Houston and Sally Wingert) were pressured to pay $500 more for TruCoat sealant for their new car purchase
• in reality, Jerry had planned on a lucrative (but ill-conceived) real-estate idea with his detested, wealthy, businessman father-in-law; he would swindle and extort the funds out of his father-in-law by asking for a loan of $750,000 to build a 40-acre parking lot in Wayzata, but the plan was in jeopardy, thus motivating and prompting Jerry to hatch the kidnapping scheme
• before their job, the two kidnappers stopped for the night at the Blue Ox Truck Stop and Hotel in Brainerd, MN where they had hired two prostitutes; after vigorous sex, the two sat up in bed in their icy blue-tinged room, catatonically watching the Tonight Show
• after hiring the two killers, Jerry learned that the real-estate deal with his father-in-law was approved, and he decided to call off his two hired thugs for the unnecessary kidnapping, but mindlessly, he realized that he had no way to contact them and abort the scheme; Jerry's original plan of acquiring $750,000 was scratched, and he was promised only a finder's fee of $75,000 dollars, plus Wade announced that he would independently process the deal without Jerry's involvement; Jerry was so upset by the news that he expressed his frustrated rage on his frozen windshield with an ice scraper
• meanwhile, at the Lundegaard residence, masked intruder Carl with a crowbar and Gaear approached the house and broke in; Jean fled to the upstairs to try to escape through a second-story window in the locked bathroom; however, she was found by Gaear hiding in the bathtub; she screamed and fled down the hallway, tripped, and ended up unconscious after falling down the flight of stairs
• that night, while transporting Jean covered in a blanket in the back seat of the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera to a cabin by Moose Lake, the kidnappers were stopped by a State Trooper (James Gaulke) asking for license and registration information for their brand-new car (with dealer plates and not the customary temporary license plates); when the officer also became suspicious after hearing whimpering sounds, Gaear in the passenger seat reached over and grabbed the cop's hair, slammed his head into the car door, grabbed a gun from the glove compartment and blew the trooper's brains out;

State Trooper Who Accosted Them Shot Dead by Gaear

• as Carl attempted to dispose of the body, another car with two passengers drove by and witnessed the murder scene; after Gaear pursued the car, it turned over in a ditch; he walked up to the two victims, and saw the male driver (J. Todd Anderson) running in the snow and shot him dead, and then returned to the car to execute the injured female (Michelle Suzanne LeDoux) in the car

Two Witnesses Who Happened to Drive By Also Executed - A Triple Murder and Total Mayhem

• early the next morning, 7 months-pregnant Brainerd Chief of Police Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) was introduced having breakfast with her loving husband Norm (John Carroll Lynch) in her home; she was hurrying on her way to a triple homicide crime scene on the road near Brainerd, MN
• at the site of the witness' deaths, she quickly surveyed everything and correctly surmised what had happened - and also stated how the perpetrator was a "big fella"; then, she was seen doubled over and bent down, supporting herself on her knee as her morning sickness overwhelmed her - instead of the tragedy of the roadside triple murder - she stated: "I just think I'm gonna barf...it's just morning sickness"; at the scene of the trooper's death, she noticed different sized prints for a second perpetrator; from the dead trooper's citation book with notes at 2:18 am, she guessed that the car was pulled over because it had Dealer plates (DLR) that had not been exchanged for temporary plates

Brainerd Police Chief Marge's "Morning Sickness" at the First of Two Crime Scenes

• shortly later, in an offbeat scene at the Lakeside Club in Brainerd, Marge interrogated two dim-witted hookers (Larissa Kokernot and Melissa Peterman), employed as strippers at the bar who had been "company" at the Blue Ox for the two suspects driving a tan Cutlass Ciera with dealer plates the evening before the two shootings; when she asked what the suspects looked like, one of the women described a "funny lookin'" uncircumcised male: ("The little guy was kinda funny-lookin'...I don't know. Just funny-Iookin'...I couldn't really say. He wasn't circumcised"); Marge was astonished and asked again: "Was he funny-lookin' apart from that?"; the second fella was described as "a little older - he looked like the Marlboro Man" who smoked alot; they were allegedly on their way to the Twin Cities
• the walls began to close in on Jerry as all of his planned schemes began to collapse:
  • (1) a distressed Carl called Jerry and reported three people dead in Brainerd, and demanded the entire ransom of $80,000 the next day
  • (2) the GMAC representative (voice of Warren Keith) demanded Jerry send proper VIN numbers for a group of vehicles immediately or he would report him to the company's legal department
  • (3) Jerry told Wade that the ransom amount for the kidnappers was raised to $1 million; to his shock, Wade insisted that he personally deliver the money rather than have Jerry be the go-between
  • (4) burly Native American mechanic Shep Proudfoot (Steve Reevis), who worked at Jerry's dealership service garage, was suspected of being in contact with the kidnappers (he was Jerry's middleman with the killers) and thereby had become an accessory to the Brainerd murders; realizing he was in deep trouble, he looked up Carl (who was having sex with a hooker in a Minneapolis hotel room) and mercilessly beat him
• during a deadly money-drop exchange of a briefcase on the roof of Minneapolis' Radisson Hotel parking garage, the aggravated kidnapper Carl was surprised to see Wade instead of Jerry; Wade demanded to see his kidnapped daughter Jean before handing over the money; surprised by the stringent demands, Carl shot Wade in the abdomen; as Wade was dying, he shot Carl in his right jaw and cheek; screaming in pain, Carl put more bullets into Wade, grabbed the briefcase, and drove toward the garage gate; passing Carl on his way up to the rooftop was Jerry, who found Wade's body on the ground; he placed the body in his trunk and then exited, realizing to his horror that Carl had also shot the attendant and smashed through the wooden exit gate

Bloody and Deadly Money-Drop Scene Between a Dying Wade and Carl

Jerry Realizing to His Horror the Magnitude of His Botched Schemes

• on the way back to the cabin to rendezvous with Gaear, Carl realized he had $1 million dollars in the briefcase rather than the $80,000 dollars promised; he greedily decided to keep the excess money for himself ($920,000), and buried it deep in the snow next to a barb-wired fence [Note: The continuation TV series beginning in 2014 showed a flashback of the money being discovered by Stavros Milos.]

Injured Carl Hiding Excess Ransom Money in Snowy Field Next to Barbed-Wire Fence

• after having briefly questioned car salesman Jerry earlier in the film if any new cars with dealer plates were missing, Marge returned to again interrogate the smarmy and snippy Jerry in his autosales office; he evasively resisted her continued line of questioning about a tan Cutlass Ciera stolen from the dealer's lot: ("Ma'am, I answered your question. I answered the darn... I'm cooperating here, and there's, there's no, uhm...Well, heck! If you wanna, if you wanna play games here. I'm workin' with ya on this thing here, but, OK, I'll do a damn lot count...Yah, right now. You're darned tootin'. If it's so damned important to ya") - when Jerry left the office to purportedly check on the inventory, he then fled from the showroom, and she shockingly realized: "Oh, for Pete's sake, he's fleeing the interview! He's fleeing the interview!"; she saw suspect Jerry escaping in a car outside the auto dealership
• once the badly-injured Carl met up with Gaear again at the remote Moose Lake cabin, he was bleeding profusely; he discovered that his insane and psychotic partner Gaear had already brutally murdered Jean to keep her quiet; they bickered bitterly over splitting the $80,000 money and also dividing up the vehicle - the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera; Carl insisted on leaving with the car in his possession, as extra compensation for his facial injury; as he left, he was attacked by Gaear from behind, who swung an axe overhead into Carl's neck, like the proverbial Paul Bunyan
• in the infamous body disposal scene outside the cabin, Marge (after receiving a tip from a bartender) happened to spot the new tan Ciera vehicle parked in front of a cabin at Moose Lake; she approached cautiously and slowly edged her way around the lakeside cabin to discover Grimsrud supplying his wood chipper with the body of his kidnapping accomplice Carl with only one shoeless leg/foot left to be shredded; a red swatch of blood was being propelled from one end of the chipper onto the white snow; when she called out "Police!", Gaear fled onto the icy lake; she trained her gun at him, fired and missed, but then struck him in the right leg; he fell to the snowy surface, grasping at his wounded thigh
• with her mute and motionless captured murderer/kidnapper Gaear handcuffed in the back of her police car, Marge chastised the criminal, expressing her weariness, disappointment, and bitterness; she lectured him and scoffed at the kidnappers' senseless and greedy motivations ("for a little bit of money"): ("So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don't you know that? And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it")
• two days later, Jerry was arrested by two state policemen in a motel room outside of Bismarck, ND; his effort to escape out the bathroom window in his underwear failed miserably as he was apprehended
• in the satisfying epilogue between Marge and her husband Norm, he calmly told her that he had won a design and drawing contest for the USPS for a 3 cent postage stamp; Norm was dejected that he hadn't won the contest for the 29 cent stamp; to compliment Norm, Marge reassured him, telling him that more people would be using the three cent stamp than the 29 cent stamp, because they would have to make up the difference in increased postage rates; both of them anticipated a hopeful future: ("We're doing pretty good...Two more months...")