Tangled Up in Blue

I was really impressed with writer-director Jeremy Saulnier's thriller Green Room. I was less taken with his next film, Hold the Dark -- though I was still left with enough goodwill in the reserves to seek out Saulnier's earlier efforts. This led me to his 2013 thriller, Blue Ruin.

Blue Ruin is the story a Dwight Evans, a homeless man whose life went hopelessly off track after his parents were murdered. Now the murderer is being released from prison, and Dwight is willing to sacrifice all of what little he has to seek vengeance.

This movie was made before Green Room, but has much of the same DNA in it. It's a compact story that puts an outclassed hero in an impossible clash with an intractable foe. The message is not obscure in any way: this is a story about the high cost of revenge. But though the story is clear and simple, that doesn't necessarily mean it's predictable. Multiple times throughout the film, just as I was calibrating my expectations to what I thought was going to happen next, there would be a sudden shift that surprised and thrilled me.

It's not just the story that's smart and slim; the dialogue itself is also incredibly economic. For large chunks of the movie, the main character is completely on his own. His thoughts and mood have to be conveyed without the benefit of words. Not only does Saulnier's script set this up well, the performance from actor Macon Blair is excellent.

Saulnier is an even stronger director here than a writer. The tale is incredibly suspenseful, and presented in a visually dynamic way. Violence is used shockingly and effectively to drive the message home. I was instantly wrapped up in the tale, and it kept me that way without ever letting up.

I give Blue Ruin an A-. And while it's getting a bit late to be updating my old Top 10 Movie List from 2013, I must do so now -- Blue Ruin makes it. Any fan of thrillers would be well rewarded to check it out.