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• Blood Simple (1984)

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Joel and Ethan Coen, now better known as the “Coen Brothers”, have spent the last twenty-six years making sixteen films that have garnered numerous critical accolades. With a best picture winning film and twenty three Oscars in total, time and time again the pair have managed to turn out critical masterpiece after masterpiece.

While many know names such as The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou?, few people today recognize the duo's first film, 1984's Blood Simple. The film takes place in Texas at a nameless bar where a love triangle is developing between a husband, a wife and the wife's lover. When the husband discovers the affair, he hires a professional hit-man to kill both the wife and the lover and therein the conflict lies.

Soon, what seems like a simple plan turns into a series of mistaken identities and violent misdeeds in a style that the Coen Brothers have since come back to in films such as Fargo and No Country For Old Men. Once the trap is set the suspense only grows until it is a dull roar. The title itself comes from Dashiel Hammet's novel Red Harvest, in which the term is used to “describe the addled, fearful mindset people are in after a prolonged immersion in violent situations,” which beautifully describes just how the viewer feels when watching this film.

While Blood Simple.(and no, that period is not a typo but rather part of the film's title) may have been released over twenty five years ago, the Coen Brother's blend of dark humor, dramatic irony and hairpin turns does not seem the least bit dated, but rather just as fresh and suspenseful as ever.