A mysterious outsider's quiet life is turned upside down when he returns to his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance. Proving himself an amateur assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.
Blue Ruin is a simple story well told; it marks promising work from both Saulnier and Blair, and delivers on its promises of a tightly-wound descent into hell. Dwight’s journey is an unpredictably painful one, and Blue Ruin makes the audience feel every painful step along the way.
A lean, tough, thoughtful thriller with depth, Blue Ruin establishes Jeremy Saulnier as a promising indie auteur and Macon Blair as an unusual leading man.
A cunning, suspenseful thriller that bears comparison to the Coen brothers’ Blood Simple, Blue Ruin is an impossible-to-ignore calling card from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier. Hollywood awaits.
Blue Ruin is the kind of debut that comes along once in a blue moon. It’s a smart, sophisticated meditation on payback that never falls for the old saw that revenge is sweet; instead, it seems to say, it’s just addictive.
Every single element from the sound design to the cinematography plays a part in building tension and keeping us rooting for an ordinary, fallible man in his pursuit of justice.
A very bloody film noir, directed with tremendous ingenuity by Jeremy Saulnier, Blue Ruin benefits from its pared-down style and macabre humour.
The endgame is disappointingly predictable, but writer-director-cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier has a lovely touch with faces, light and telling details.
It all adds up to a gripping, gruelling, thought-provoking work; lean, mean and bad to the bone.
Macon Blair’s eyes burn through an unconvincing plot.
Jeremy Saulnier
General release. Check local listings for show times.
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Sunday June 15, 2014, until Wednesday June 18, 2014. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com