the leading man is my tpye

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There is a scene in Blue Ruin where Dwight (Macon Blair), a homeless man pursuing a personal vendetta he is ill-suited for, walks into a goods store after receiving a nasty arrow wound in a leg. He starts buying disinfectants, stitches, pincers, glue, and you think you've seen all this before.Cut to Dwight groaning as he fumbles with the wound trying to get the arrow out.Cut to Dwight limping into an ICU and collapsing to the ground.This bit of black humor encapsulates Blue Ruin: a clever, subversive little thriller which reminds me most of all of the Coens' debut Blood Simple, as inept characters stumble through poorly planned crimes with messy results.Blair is remarkable in the lead role; his Dwight is an interesting, unusual protagonist for the genre, basically the anti-Jason Bourne - an incompetent killer wrecked by memories of his past. Direction by Jeremy Saulnier is impeccable; the movie often shifts between taut action beats and unexpectedly funny moments, and it works.7,5/10

What a great film. From start to finish, I was hooked. It may be a slow burner, but man that slow burn was hot. I loved the fact that the entire movie had about 3 noises in it. This thing was quiet, but that made it so much more realistic, and easy to sink into. The photography and cinematography in this movie were brilliant. Not a single frame seemed like a throw away. As far as the story goes, this thing was brilliantly written. The main plot-line is great, and all the little twists along the way make the story pop. The thing I really liked about the writing though were the subtle details that kept the story from flowing too fast. All the little hic-ups that Dwight seemed to run into along the way make for great writing. Will definitely recommend, and definitely watch again.

Blue RuinLow budget, but carefully made.Starting off well, tense and terse. But petered out because of mediocre acting and dialogue. IMHO, a stronger portrait of Dwight was necessary to draw the audience into the story.The story lacked depth because there was no flash back to provide emotional intensity. No back story about the McCoy and Hatfields. Why should we care about the protagonist? Ended in a sad bloody confrontation. The film makers have potential. Hope that the next one is much better.

During Blue Ruin's festival run in 2013, I recall hearing whispers of a new visionary in the vein of the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino who was unafraid to shock and rattle the audience with sudden explosions of violence combined with jet-black humour. While Jeremy Saulnier's second feature, following 2007's Murder Party, certainly has elements of the Coen's claustrophobic neo-noir work, the Tarantino comparisons are completely misjudged. Blue Ruin is very much the work of a director sculpting his own vision, and one that will keep you glued to your seat as the film twists and turns, deliberately dodging nearly every trope of the revenge drama.While most revenge flicks begin with an act of violence that will lead its scarred protagonist on their journey of righting a wrong, Blue Ruin's initial hook is that it opens slowly and ominously, with a dirty, bearded man breaking into a home to take a bath. When the family arrive home, he flees into the neighbourhood naked, stealing clothes from a nearby washing line. Ragged and apparently half- starved, the man stumbles back to his home - a hollowed-out blue car (the 'blue ruin' of the title) in the middle of a field. This, as it turns out, is Dwight, our great hero, played with astonishing subtlety by Macon Blair, and a visit from the police quickly sets him on a vastly different path. The man responsible for something horrific in Dwight's past has been released from prison, so he heads back to his hometown seeking revenge.The revenge is not the final goal of the film, as this is carried out early on in particularly gruesome and realistic fashion. Instead, it is the repercussions that place Dwight and his estranged family in a situation they can either flee from or face head-on. The victim of Dwight's act has his own family, only they are all gun- wielding criminals, and the lack of news coverage of the incident can only mean one thing - they have decided to take matters into their own hands. Although they are rarely seen throughout the course of the film, you get the sense that they are never far behind, forcing Dwight to seek help from and old childhood friend, ex-Army good ol' boy Ben (Devin Ratray - who I only realised after the film had finished played the bullying Buzz in Home Alone (1990)), and his arsenal of firearms.While it may sound like the film veers off into the realms of gun fantasy, it really doesn't. The relative ease in which Dwight acquires weaponry only gives the film an underlying anti-gun message, and the scenes of bloody violence are certainly anything but pornographic. They are ugly and revolting, as are many of the film's characters, even the ones we're on the side of. Non-preachy themes aside, the main pleasures to be had with Blue Ruin are during its smaller moments. This is a film where a burst tyre or an accidentally self-inflicted knife wound to the hand don't simply provide an excuse for a set-piece, but pose serious problems for its antagonist. Despite the film moving at a slow pace for the most part, it's entirely nerve-jangling and almost scary, as it's almost impossible to guess where the movie may be heading. While I feel Saulnier's next slice of terror Green Room is a better film, this is only a sign of a director perfecting his craft.