Review for Blood Simple.

The Coen Brothers are probably the best filmmakers that there have ever been. They have the critical, commercial success and awards to prove it and throughout their career they have made some amazing films ranging from the hilarious with The Dude in The Big Lebowski to the atmospheric in No Country For Old Men to the effective storytelling of Fargo. Even some of their missfires like their ill-advised remake of the Ealing classic The Ladykillers still had some charm to it. This odyssey of filmmaking all started with the film Blood Simple.

Blood Simple is anything but simple. In fact for a first film it is amazingly ambitious and if they had re-released this around the release of No Country For Old Men you would be forgiven for thinking that they had made it recently. That being said, it is a product of its 80s, but unlike a lot of low budget, first films, this one has a shine on it that defies all that. This is not your typical low budget film that relies on being a genre film such as Lucas's THX-1138 or Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and instead relies on some wonderful performances and a dense, involving and thoroughly entertaining script.

The plot revolves around bar owner Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) who suspects that his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with Ray (John Getz), one of Julian's bartenders. Julian hires a private detective Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to snoop on the couple to prove this. Once proved, Julian decides to hire Visser to kill the two of them. It is here that the film takes a downward spiral into misdirection, red herrings and double crosses that leaves you wondering who will remain at the end.

This Director's Cut is one of those rare times when it is actually shorter (albeit only by three minutes), but the editing and shots are a lot tighter and the long issues with the rights to certain music has been resolved. I would be lying if I say I can tell the difference between the cuts, I think only by watching them side by side could anyone do this, but any changes that have been made do not effect the quality.

The only issue that I have with this version is that there is simply not enough to recommend it. Sure, if you a huge fan of The Coens (and everyone should be) it is a classic film that belongs in your collections, however there is very little difference to this version and the US DVD that was released in 2008 and in fact it is quite disappointing that no new documentaries, interviews or features are included apart from a trailer. In 2013 this is just not acceptable and I was hoping they would include the hilarious commentary by Kenneth Loring (a fictional character) who spouts out some of the most absurd, but hilarious facts and stories about the making of the film.

Sadly, this is really where the film is let down. If you own Blood Simple in one form or another (and it is usually included in most Coen Brothers sets) there is no real reason to pick this up. If you are a huge fan of the movie and you don't own it already then certainly pick it up and if you haven't seen it, then I would thoroughly recommend it.