Blue Ruin (Movie Review)

Not your average revenge flick, Blue Ruin is an artfully crafted movie about a man on a mission.

The revenge story is one that has been told by just about every genre of film, and while the stories may vary a little, there is a fairly well-established pattern. Bad guys do a bad thing to the protagonist or someone they love, the protagonist goes on an all-consuming mission for revenge, and, within the horror and action genres a pile of bodies ensues. And the protagonist is almost always preternaturally good at killing, hiding, setting traps, and at least one style of sophisticated hand-to-hand combat. Sometimes this "very particular set of skills" is explained by a backstory involving a past life in the special forces or some secret agency, a la Taken, sometimes it isn't explained at all. Blue Ruin is the story of what happens when a our protagonist is just a regular guy.

At the openning of the film, the bad guys have have already done the bad thing. Dwight is dealing with it by living out of his car, in self-imposed exile, when a police officer picks him up to tell him that the man who killed his parents is about to be released from prison. The newspaper clipping that she hands him is the catalyst for everything that follows.  The bodies begin to pile up, albeit more slowly than viewers may expect from a revenge film. And Dwight certainly is an atypical hero. Once he cleans up, he's just a guy in some ill-fitting khakis, who has been seemingly thrown into the plot of a film written for Jason Statham. This is perfectly illustrated in a scene where Dwight sets out to treat a pretty severe wound he sustained in a fight the night before. Walking up and down the aisles of a small local store, he grabs an xacto knife, needle and thread, and gallons of antiseptic before returning to a secluded place to take care of business. It quickly becomes apparent that he has no idea what he's doing; cut to him entering an emergency room, only to faint mid-sentece and wake up fully mended. This pattern continues throughout the story as we learn more about what happened to Dwight's parents years ago.

Film buffs may notice that this film looks and feels a lot like a Coen brothers' film. Its lush scenery, lovingly and precisely filmed, seem an unmistakable nod. The universe is one where bad things happen to bad people, and its a dark comedy with an emphasis on "dark" that seems to be done best by the famous duo. Blue Ruin doesn't make any bones about it's subversion and genre-bending. Around the midpoint of the film Dwight seeks the help of an old high school friend, Ben (played by grown-up Buzz McCallister from the Home Alone franchise), who gives him some advice that seems to be winking directly at a major genre trope, "I know this is personal for you. That's how you'll fail. No speeches, no talking. You point the gun. You shoot the gun." Dwight isn't going to have the poetic, revenge that the audience usually expects for it's hero. His story isn't going to wrap up cleanly, and he is going to have to fight tooth and nail just to get through to the end. 

All in all, this movie is near flawlessly done. the story is well written and paced, the action sequences are beautiful and intense, and the suspense hangs on throughout.