Blue Ruin, 2013.
Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier.
Starring Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves, Kevin Kolack and Eve Plumb.
SYNOPSIS:
A mysterious outsider’s quiet life is turned upside down when he returns to his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance. Proving himself an amateur assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.
“He’s going to be released” says a police officer to Dwight, a long haired, long bearded vagrant whose only place he can call home is a rusty, beaten up light blue Pontiac. With these few words one man makes a decision which will see bloodshed and violence, with no one getting away clean.
For a revenge thriller, a genre which has been tried and tested for decades, Blue Ruin is quite brilliant and what resonates the most is the lead character, Dwight. As the film begins we watch as he flees from one house as the owners get back from vacation, only to find his next meal in a trash can and within the opening few minutes of Blue Ruin we understand this man’s day to day routine with barely a word spoken. He is a man with practically nothing except this crappy car, but he is also a man driven by a personal mission. He isn’t ex-SAS and he doesn’t have weapons or combat training, nor is he taking down a criminal empire or getting involved in some Death Wish style killing spree for the sake of a high body count to please a bloodthirsty audience. Moreover, there isn’t a crazy, nasty group of villains for us to hate on and get behind Dwight.
The revenge Dwight seeks is against the man who killed both of his parents and is now being released from jail some 20 years after. It’s a refreshing take to have a man revenge the death of parents as opposed to a wife or child as is so often the case, and the long stretch of time after the incident only adds to the pain and anger Dwight must have built up over this period, and is presumably part of the reason why he is now without a home, although this is never fully explored.
Blue Ruin takes its time and is never hurried into action, yet at 95 minutes it rarely wastes a scene, of which several stand out; an assassination attempt in a toilet, the eye-watering task of removing an arrow from a leg, a man held captive in the boot of a car; and the tense, drawn out climax all help make Blue Ruin a gripping experience. However, like Blood Simple, the film is not without its dark comedic moments which are welcome to break up the violence and gives the proceedings a more ‘naturalistic’ feel. In one scene a man is killed and the uttered line “that’s what bullets do” is both funny and frightening in its bluntness and honesty.
The film is frugal with dialogue and liberal with storytelling through images, always looking professional and making the most of the Virginia landscapes, never cheapened with flashy camera techniques. It reminds me of a mixture of the Coen brothers Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men for what can be done with a low budget and simple story, and its relentless pursuits where violence and death are the only concern. That’s prolific company to be associated with but writer and director Jeremy Saulnier has earned it here.
If there’s one area which stops the film from reaching true greatness it’s the final act. Although tense, well shot, and slowly building up to a final explosion of violence I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed by the lack of emotion or resolution on show from Dwight. He isn’t a violent man but has done violent things either to get his initial revenge or to fend for his life, but there didn’t seem to be redemptive, nor does the violence seem to change him throughout the film. I could argue that because he has nothing so this is all he has to live and die for, but the film just needed something a little deeper to bring this home.
Minor issues aside, Blue Ruin is a superb film, the likes of which it is a pleasure to watch and write about. It shows what can be done with a small budget, a simple idea, sparse dialogue, and confidence in the audience to stay with it without sacrificing style or substance.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Rohan Morbey – follow me on Twitter.
Originally published April 28, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
