Skip to main content

Coen Brothers month: Raising Arizona

 A review by Brooks Rich

This is the film that was the shot across the bow for the Coen Brothers. Blood Simple made people pay attention but Raising Arizona showed that these guys were something special. It is them at their genre-jumping best. The Coen's have this inane ability to switch genres from one film to the next. For example, they follow up Blood Simple, a dark and gritty Texas-based noir, with a borderline goofy comedy like Raising Arizona. 

Raising Arizona is one of their masterpieces. The story of an ex-con and his police photographer wife who decide to steal a baby after they can't conceive is a delightfully poetic screwball comedy. The writing in this is some of the Coens best. There's comedic poetry to the writing. Lines like, but the doctor said that her insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase, just flow beautifully throughout the film. It's helped that Nicolas Cage gives maybe his best performance here as the loveable H.I. McDunnough, one of the Coen's more likable protagonists. 

The Coen's do some of their best character work in this film as well. They're known for making memorable minor characters stand out against the more regular protagonists in their films. This is more noticeable in the dramas, where the side characters really contrast the leads. Look no further than the Bear Guy in True Grit or Mike Yanagita in Fargo. Raising Arizona is essentially a film full of Coen Brothers' side characters. They can feel exaggerated at times but there's a humanity there when the moment calls for it. The Coen's can be extremely pessimistic but they can be sincere and poignant at the right times. The end of the film where H.I. and Ed are confronted by the father of the stolen baby is one of their most touching moments. 

I adore this film. This is one of my all-time favorite comedies and easily one of my favorite Coen Brothers' films. I revisit it on a regular basis even though I basically know it by heart and it never fails to make me laugh. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgotten Film Friday: Absolute Power

Clint Eastwood stars as Luther Whitney, a jewel thief who works in the Washington DC area. One night while he is stealing from a mansion he is forced to hide in a secret compartment with a two way mirror. From there he observes a sexual rezendevous with the wife of a powerful man and the President of the United States Alan Richmond (Gene Hackman) Suddenly the president gets aggressive and while defending herself the woman is shot to death by two Secret Service agents. Luther manages to get away with a letter opener the woman stabbed the president with. At first Luther plans to flee the country. But when he is disgusted by a statement the president makes, Luther decides to expose the crime. I miss these kind of films. The nineties was a great time for thrillers exactly like this. They are not the flashiest films but they are also not obsessed with big action scenes. It's all plot and character with them. Sure this plot might be a little out there but Eastwood makes it work. He's...
1 comment
Read more

John Candy month

 What can you say about John Candy? He was a comic genius who was taken from us too soon. There were a lot of comedic heavyweights of the eighties and nineties but Candy stood above most of them. If there is a Mount Rushmore of comedy I imagine John Candy would be on it. For the month of July we are honoring this comic genius. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Oscar bait month

 The Academy Awards. That time of the year when everyone debates what movies are truly the best and there is never a consensus and no one is ever happy. A movie can be incredibly popular and then it wins a bunch of Oscars and suddenly it's overrated and not very good or downright bad. It happens every year. But for the month of April let's take a look at those films that had Oscars on their mind and instead fell flat on their faces. Now Oscar Bait is a term that can also be applied to winners or films that did score a bunch of nominations. For example Bradley Cooper's film Maestro is very much an Oscar Bait movie even though it had a decent awards season. I want to talk about the films that did nothing. That were early contenders then either faded away eventually or just plain crashed and burned. Oscar Bait's biggest failures. What wrong here with these? Was the movie poor? Did something else just have a dominant run? Or were politics involved? Maybe all of the above. S...
Post a Comment
Read more