Despite its illogic, still worth seeing the first Coen Bros film

The Coen Bros first film (Joel director, both co-wrote), Blood Simple (1984), is a compulsively watchable crime story that is great on atmosphere, has some fine performances - including the breakout for a Texas-tough Frances McDormand - and a few hints at the Coen Brothers' style that would go on to serve them well in a varied career spanning +30 years. The plot is elementary: jealous husband/bar owner (played by Dan Hedaya - later a completely different character as the indelible dad in Clueless) hires a sleazy and weirdly comical private detective to kill his unfaithful wife (FMcD) and her boyfriend (Ray/John Getz, a bartender at husband's place). And things go awry, of course. The strength of the film lies in its look - some great, weirdly lit nighttime interior shots, lots of shards of broken glass shimmering like diamonds and blood like red putty, and great landscape scenes, especially on the roads of Texas at night, a burial in an agricultural field, men tossing huge bundles into a massive incinerator, to cite just a few examples that come to mind. The dark humor - the detective's goofy laughter at the most inappropriate moments, the desperate and over-the-top villainy of Hedaya, Getz's idiotic attempt to clean up a crime scene - all add to the out-of-whack atmosphere: this is no ordinary crime movie. That said, the closer you examine the plot the more ridiculous it seems, with its many glaring holes of logic and improbability. For one: Why would Ray try to clean the crime scene (he suspects his wife committed the shooting because he finds her pistol on the floor) rather than just dispose of the damn gun? Plus many others. But I won't give anything away or spoil the fun: for Coen fans especially, this is worth a look at see some smart filmmakers figuring things out and having a lot of fun, it seems.