Blue Ruin, made with a budget of less than US$500,000 with some of it raised from a Kickstarter campaign, was undeniably the indie darling of 2013. Made by a director, Jeremy Saulnier, so unknown that he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page yet, it won almost universal acclaim from critics. That makes it a must-watch in my book.

At its heart, this film is a dead simple revenge thriller. Dwight Evans, played by Macon Blair in what will no doubt be considered his breakthrough role, is a homeless man who finds a new purpose when he learns that the man who murdered his parents is about to be released from prison. With almost no money and no resources other than a beat-up old car, he attempts to carry out a half-baked plan to enact vengeance. But the murderer has family of his own and things escalate from there.

There’s a familiar Shakespearean vibe to this classic tale of what is essentially a feud between two families in a small town and few surprises along the way. What makes Blue Ruin stand out is its impeccable execution. Beginning right from the opening scenes of Evans sleeping rough and scrounging in trashcans for food, it draws you effortlessly into his life. You naturally wonder what’s in his life and what drove him to this. Even as you start to realize what’s going on, the act of violence when it arrives is so shocking that it hits you like a ton of bricks. It has such perfect control and pacing that even a mundane scene like a home invasion is filled with tension and dread.

Many films try to make their protagonist the proverbial everyman but not many try to do it in a revenge thriller or do it successfully. Evans has no superpowers, no skills with guns or any other weapons, nothing in fact except for common sense and an extraordinarily powerful drive for revenge (plus a friend who happens to be a gun nut). I like how he even attempts to treat a wound himself, like the tough guys do in every action movie, only to fail miserably. This is one of the reasons why the violence here feels visceral and the stakes feel high. It even manages to avoid annoying the audience by having the protagonist do blatantly stupid things. In the above example, after failing to treat himself, Evans simply goes to a hospital.

That said, there are some obvious flaws. For one thing, a bigger budget would have allowed for a stronger setting. It’s odd how the Evans look like they live in ordinary suburbia while the enemy Clelands look like they live out in the woods. The whole movie feels like it would benefit by being moved into the more fully-realized world of True Detective. A clunky moment is when the camera switches focus to Evans’ sister for one scene after having intimately followed his every movement, breaking the atmosphere. I was particularly disappointed in the moralizing tone in the ending scene, which betrays a lack of confidence in the film which should be allowed to speak for itself.

Still, there is little doubt that Blue Ruin deserves all of the kudos it has received and Saulnier is a director worth paying attention to it. Traditional revenge thrillers seem like a genre that had its heyday in the 1970s but Saulnier proves that a good director can still breathe new life into it.