'Blue Ruin' A Review

Blue Ruin is a small, tight, grim, revenge thriller set in Virginia. The film opens with transient Dwight(Macon Blair) taking a bath in a strangers house. It then follows him for a series of scenes with no dialogue. He is homeless and lives in his car. With a bushy beard and haunted downcast eyes Dwight is unassuming verging on pathetic. Things change when a cop brings him in and notifies him that the man imprisoned for killing his parents is being released. Dwight then gets his old Pontiac Bonneville running, the blue ruin of the title, and heads back to his home town to kill the man recently freed.

The film is shot beautifully and has a patient subdued tone which creates an organic thrumming suspense, inferring much to the audience by shot and score alone. There is an acute sense of authenticity about the film that brings it vibrancy. The focus is on character and emotion rather than circumstance, on the mundane minutiae and tools of revenge that make it credible. The dialogue is sparse but thick with subtext. Fascinating characters come into sharp clarity not through exposition, long-winded monologues, or over-complicated action sequences but through presence and image and situation.

At the center of it all Macon Blair gives an amazingly layered and complicated performance. He leads this bloody and pure film with an air of exhausted resignation and determination. The supporting cast is great but only Devin Ratray as best friend Ben matches Blair's nuance.

A refreshing, personal, and engrossing look at rural Virginian revenge that touches the heart and keeps its beat jacked.

Don't Miss It.

'Blue Ruin' opens tomorrow at the Music Box in Chicago. See it while you can, it is currently only playing through May 8th.