BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

petra_ste 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

Caleb Zero 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.

nsg666 I normally use IMDb reviews as a gauge to decide whether it's worth watching a movie as the audience is usually more honest than the TV listings guide. Sadly not on this occasion and I'm baffled by the IMDb score.It's one of those movies where people repeatedly do stupid things that make their situation worse but winds you up.Early on the main character does something stupid and badly cuts his hand and having dropped the keys to his own car steals another. Then, when the bad guys attack the house he's gone to, he tries to drive off in..... the car he had to abandon because he lost his keys! How did he get it back? And to boot, his hand seems to have miraculously healed.Fearing that this movie would continue to wind me up until my head exploded I decided to stop it there and then. Pain over.

AT It is a curious piece, but a pleasing one. The auteur, Jeremy Saulnier, has roots in cinematography and it shows. While the visuals are deliberate at times and overly-filtered in general, the film has a beautifully polished quality to some pretty grainy and dire images at times. It is easy on the eyes - and what a relief to be allowed the pleasure of enjoying some long shots instead of the epileptic, Bay- esque staccato cutting that seems to be so prevalent these days.Speaking of outlandish budgets, this film was assembled for around $35 000 courtesy of Kickstarter, and to all those that contributed : feel pleased on money well-spent.Nothing terribly new here: a revenge odyssey and a passable thriller with the usual mixing-bowl pros and cons. But for $35k, a novice film-maker and a cast of un- and barely-knowns to achieve an award at Cannes and almost a million dollars at the domestic popcorn-store I feel compelled to give them a nod or two myself.The story involves a mysterious vagrant man who seemingly drifts through his days without causing anyone much bother. Yet upon finding out that his father's killer is being released from prison, he kicks into payback mode and briskly goes about executing (cough) a messy, committed, revenge killing. Somewhat botched (both himself and the attack) he realises that his actions have consequences on not just his personal safety, but an estranged sister and her kids too - his victim's family being the two- legs-and-your-heart-for-an-eye kinda folk. Things get progressively out of control as he tries to spirit his family to safety and offer himself up as restitution; but we all know it's never easy reasoning with armed criminal sociopaths. So everyone gets a bit carried away.It's taut - without ever being truly tense - but pleasingly the story moves. The acting is a mixed bag, mostly due to somewhat flimsy supporting characters, but the lead performance by Macon Blair (Dwight) is truly excellent. His soft features and placid expressions render him very hard to date (guess his age, not woo romantically) and his immersion into the role is impressive, especially given his extended screen-time makes him vulnerable to over-scrutiny. You never learn much about him, nor experience a bond, but he has a likable, authentic quality.Blair's performance, coupled with some stomach-churning realism, are the tent-poles of this picture. The violence is sporadic, explosive and explicit, but it's the suffering that certain characters endure which is effecting and accomplished in its presentation.The score is understated and appropriate and the outcome suitably bleak without being nihilistic, never quite delivering a devilish twist but swaying just far enough away from convention to keep one thinking longer than the first credits.Some have opined that Blue Ruin has elements of Tarantino and The Coen brothers - I'm inclined to disagree. Yes, their collective influence is residual in most independent film-making these days. But this movie doesn't orchestrate the stylish blood-shed of Tarantino's violence nor deliver the sly black humour that grouts the Coen body counts. If we must seek comparisons then I suggest back-track further left-field and compare works of Vincent Gallo and Arthur Penn. If you are a fan of either, or indeed both, their visionary output then sit yourself in front of Blue Ruin post-haste.Attempting to box this film does it a disservice. It is no masterpiece and its budget and story limitations are there to behold. Despite it's warts it entertains, engrosses and is something different. And for a movie which isn't an original, well - that's quite some trick isn't it?