Film Review: Blue Ruin (Amazon Prime, 2014)

Taylor Hawkins
Jul 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Whenever I go to the movie theater, I’m always stunned at the type of movies I see that have gotten funded. It never fails. Sure, there’s generally at least one really solid option, but there’s a lot of crap out there.

Even now at my normal theater during a peak movie period with a strong mix of genres, there are 8 films that are really well-regarded, a middle of the road experimental sci-fi flick (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), a children’s movie (Despicable Me 3) and a few that have slipped under the radar for me — a horror film (Wish Upon) and a showing of one of legendary Japanese animator Hayao Mizayaki’s classic films (Kiki’s Delivery Service).

Then there’s another Transformers movie, and I simply can’t understand who was clamoring for that. Yet as I say that, it made half a billion dollars, so that gives it a reason to exist, particularly since the budget was $217 million, giving it a huge profit margin. I have to wonder if that’s what a certain demographic wants to see or if that’s what they were offered on a day they wanted to go to the movies, which is sort of a chicken or the egg type of deal.

Instead of focusing on those terrible big budget flicks, I find myself actively searching out some of the lesser known films out there by people putting their soul into their work out of necessity. Two weeks ago I came across one such film in Blue Ruin, which has a backstory as colorful as the film itself.

While Jeremy Saulnier is listed as the director of Blue Ruin, he collaborated with lifelong friend Macon Blair throughout the entire process, just like he did with Murder Party before it, and Green Room after it. They had no money to fund the film, so they crowdsourced money to go alongside everything they had to come up with the necessary funds.

In a 2014 Rolling Stone article by Tim Grierson, the level of urgency and commitment to making the film is laid out quite clearly clearly.

Though making a living shooting other people’s films, Saulnier envisioned Blue Ruin as his last best chance to prove himself as a director. As for Blair, “I had done very small supporting parts in small movies, but I definitely did not have any kind of sustainable acting career. I was very lucky to get to do the projects that I did, but I was holding onto my day job for dear life.” Saulnier emptied his brokerage account, his wife liquidated her retirement account, and both of their mothers threw in money as well. A Kickstarter campaign and Saulnier’s American Express Platinum got them the rest of the way to the film’s budget, which was less than $300,000.

With the same fire and intensity that Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro had when making Raging Bull — which they assumed could have very well been the former’s last film — Saulnier and Blair took on their passion project with the assumption that it would probably be the last thing they did before abandoning their dreams and getting a regular job.

And their passion paid off in the end.

The story revolves around the life of Dwight Evans (Macon Blair), who scrounges around a little beach town, sleeping in his car, showering in public facilities, and and living a life of solitude that he has created for himself. When he finds out Wade Cleland is released from prison, he sets off on a revenge trip that quickly turns into a blood feud in which no family member is safe.

The town will feel familiar to anyone who has lived away from the major metropolises. The suburbs and houses look and feel lived in, and the rural, hunting areas of the outskirts of the county hold secrets shared over hard liquor and camp fires. They’ve created this surreal world that still reeks of normalcy, and it’s quite a feat.

It highlights the mundaneness of life, even when the situation can be, to say the least, precarious. For instance, there’s a stretch where Dwight is waiting to ambush a group of folks at their house, and he sits and waits, finding ways to entertain himself along the way. Even when he’s at his most bored, there’s a feeling of dread in the air that things could go terribly wrong.

Saulnier and Blair do one of my favorite things that a director can do. They toss the viewer directly into the middle of a story and ask us to catch up and figure out what has already occurred. They don’t spoonfeed you every morsel of information that you need. They make you an active part of the story and and challenge you to question and find the answers for yourself. It’s an engaging film in which the viewer gets almost no breaks whatsoever.

Of all the movies I’ve seen recently, Blue Ruin may be the most memorable. It is a raw, gritty revenge film with memorable characters and violence that looks all too real. It doesn’t glorify it, but it doesn’t shy away from it either. This is a film born from passion.

Blue Ruin can be found streaming on Amazon Prime.

Rating:★★★★

Rotten Tomatoes: 96% (129 of 134)

Taylor Hawkins

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Freelance writer and blogger for hire traveling all over the grand ole US of A. DM for contact information. List enthusiast.

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