April 21, 1996 -- “Fargo,” one of the most acclaimed films of this year, rolled into Laramie last week to the delight of all Cohen brothers fans.

The Cohen brothers, Ethan and Joel, have accumulated a cult-like following from their previous films, “Blood Simple,” “Raising Arizona,” “Barton Fink” and “Miller's Crossing.”

I could have done without the blood (including a scene with a person being fed into a wood chipper), but the comedy is hilarious.

The star of the film is Frances McDormand, who plays Brainerd Police Chief Marge Gunderson. Gunderson, with her strong Scandanavian accent and apparent naivete, turns out to be a whiz as a detective. All the hicks keep saying “yah!, yah!” McDormand, who previously appeared in several Coen brothers films, as well as playing Dr. Molly Arrington in “Primal Fear,” gives a knockout performance as the pregnant, but relentless, police woman.

The film is partly a celebration of the virtues of small town America. It is the rubes against the city slickers. It finds humor in the people of rural Minnesota and South Dakota (where the Coen brothers grew up) but it doesn't really make fun of them. I'm familiar with this part of the country, having lived for several years in the northern peninsula of Michigan, about a 100 miles east of Minnesota. I heard similar accents there.

Pitted against the hicks are a scheming manager of a large car dealership, Jerry Lundegaard (brilliantly played by William H. Macy) and a couple of small time hoods, little, funny-looking Carl Showalter (played by Steve Buscemi) and the hulking, sullen, murderous Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare).

All of the actors, including the lesser characters are very effective in this film. The photography, by Roger Deakins, is also outstanding. Deakins is endlessly creative in making the bleak, white, barren landscape of North Dakota and Minnesota not only interesting, but compelling. A crane shot over a snow-covered parking lot in the film is a exquisite bit of photographic composition.

This film has all the things that the pseudo-hip love, including the latest rage: dialogue that doesn't advance the plot. Even with that, and as bloody and violent as this film is (it also has some sexually explicit scenes), it is still very funny and very entertaining. The main reasons it is so entertaining are those marvelous small town characters and the unpredictable plot twists. According to the film's credits, it is based on a true story. It turns out this is just another example of the Coen brother's odd sense of humor. The story is fiction. The fact that the Coen brothers have perpetuated this fiction has elevated the movie to urban legend status. This particular myth is discussed at the Urban Legends reference pages at Snopes.com.

“Fargo” is an effective little morality play and a very engrossing film, but it is not for the squeamish. It rates an A.

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