Dwight Evans wakes up in his car. He is unkempt, unshaven, unwashed, a vagrant who lives on the beach front and scrapes an existence through dumpster diving. Then a policewoman brings him into the local precinct. Not because Dwight has done anything, but because he needs to be told that the man who murdered his parents, is soon to be released from prison. That's when the film kicks into high gear, and when Dwight definitely does something. Something that will put him on the run for the reaming, taut ninety minutes of this noirish Southern Gothic thriller. Jeremy Saulnier's film was compared to the work of the Coen Brothers upon release, but it's by no means the sort of surreal, occasionally brutal fare you see in the likes of The Big Lebowski or Fargo. There is little room for humour in Blue Ruin. There's little room for anything, in fact. It's a film that's had the fat cut off entirely, a lithe and single-minded revenge flick that has more in common with the similarly paced and themed Blood Simple or No Country For Old Men, only with a stronger emotional core and a career-making performance from Macon Blair as Dwight. To say any more would spoil it. Go watch it on Netflix immediately. You won't be sorry.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
