We keep going back in time for films by the Coen brothers and this is as far back as we can get as it is the very first feature film that they made. Apparently they had to scrounge for financing for a year after making a trailer for it on their own and yes, it does star an unrecognizably young Frances McDormand. It’s crude in some ways and bears some hallmarks of inexperienced directors but on the whole it is an excellent film and that is an impressive feat indeed.

During a car ride, bartender Ray confesses that he has feelings for Abby, the wife of his boss. They spend the night in a motel to consummate their affair but are unaware that a private investigator, Lorren, working for Abby’s husband Marty has been following them and has taken photographs of them together. He delivers the photos to Marty who simmers in rage for a while. Eventually he works up the courage to ask Lorren to kill the two for $10,000. Loren asks Marty to leave town while he handles everything. He does indeed infiltrate Ray’s house while he is sleeping with Abby. When Marty returns, he presents him with apparent photos of the couple’s deaths but then shoots Marty and flees with the money. The still alive Ray then stumbles onto the scene, thinks that Abby has killed her husband and knowing that he will be blamed for it tries to dispose of the body.

This one takes a while to get going as unlike most other Coen brothers’ thrillers, you don’t immediately get a dead body at the beginning of the film. Once it gets going however the mixture of blood, sex, confusion, morbid humor and money is classically Coen brothers through and through. It’s familiar material but still lots of fun to watch. There are genuinely great stuff in here as well such as Ray’s guilt and indecision as he realizes what is going on. I also love that most other directors would probably have made Abby a passive victim but she is far from one in this film. It’s really impressive how the brothers write all of their own scripts and have been doing such a great job at it since the 1980s.

As great as it is, this is still visibly an amateur effort in many respects. Pacing isn’t as slick as the brothers’ newer films, causing it to lose energy in places. The cinematography feels a little too fascinated in experimenting with visually interesting shots and angles without respect to the needs of the scene or how well they fit the theme. The title itself is an odd turn of phrase that is rarely used. The character of Lorren the private investigator explicitly uses it to caution Marty against being stupid. Perhaps it’s ironic as he himself makes mistakes but it feels like a clumsy handling of the film’s themes.

There’s no doubt however that this is a very strong film that deserves to be watched even today. The Coen brothers’ skill in the craft of directing has improved by leaps and bounds since then but unlike many other famous directors even this first effort is good enough to be included in the annals of cinematic history.