Popular reviews

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  Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★ 77

  The revenge is brutal, swift, and quick, but it's only the beginning in this dirty gritty grimy modern noir that will leave you breathless. Bathtub bandit. Trash bag french fries. Kind cop. Gentle ocean waves. Maps have useful directions. More people should send postcards. Car alarms can be loud. Crowbars ain't no joke. Dwight's beard. The mood is tense as a motherfucker, and the musical score is done just right to keep you on the edge of your seat. Neck stab. Bloody t-shirt. Limousine pimpin'. Dwight looks different without his beard. The importance of the bottle of ketchup at the diner. Box of memories. You don't want to fuck with a man who carries a pitchfork. Carpet crawl. When Dwight…

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  Review by Lucy ★★★★ 2

  every time the tension in a jeremy saulnier movie is broken by a sudden burst of chaotic violence... i shit myself... EVERY... TIME

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  Review by CinemaCl🎃wn ★★★★ 7

  Thrilling, suspenseful & effortlessly sustaining its nail-biting tension from start to finish, Blue Ruin is a cleverly paced, beautifully composed & brilliantly performed revenge thriller that unfolds its premise in an extremely comfortable manner yet a foreboding tension is always present in this indie which is further amplified by those anxious moments between each n every encounter.

  The story concerns Dwight Evans, a mysterious vagrant whose quiet life goes for a toss after he learns of an unexpected news & returns to his hometown to carry out an act of vengeance. The retribution is quick & brutal but it also exposes him to be an amateur assassin who, when it comes to protecting his estranged family, puts up an unexpectedly brave fight.

  Written, directed…

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 5

  87/100

  Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin unfolds like a series of waves before an incoming storm. Fresh, serene, and calm, its foreboding fits of violence escalate through errors, utilized as exclamations rather than eruptions (although the fantastic makeup/special effect work begs to differ, wooo boy), allowing for the character to react and witness the profound effect of the weapons in our hands and the damage they can cause. When Devin Ratray's Ben states "you point the gun, you shoot", the clarity resonates, for revenge *is* personal no matter how detached Macon Blair's Dwight may strive to be. It makes the elemental images within every frame - waves, thunderstorms, sandy beaches, carnivals - contrast against Saulnier's roaming eye, evoking a world where…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 1

  An assuredly directed & brilliantly detailed thriller about how things become weapons. not entirely convinced it sticks the landing, but is surprisingly successful in making the transition from hyper-accomplished genre wank to meaty thing of substance™.

  real talk: this film is going to break Fantastic Fest.

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  Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★

  Damn. Now that’s a revenge movie.

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  Review by Naughty aka Juli Norwood ★★★½ 1

  Refreshing to see a film when push comes to shove the protagonist doesn't automatically acquire the skills with weaponry, violence and killing that can only come from years of specialized training!

  Interesting enough to keep my attention throughout but lets be honest it's nothing to write home about! Don't get me wrong it's a decent film it's just not spectacular!

  The promising young director Jeremy Saulnier film would not have been made if it wasn't for a successful fundraising campaign thru kickstarter!

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  Review by alor ★★★★½ 1

  One of the best looking low budget films i have ever seen. Gorgeous cinematography

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  Review by Aaron ★★★★ 15

  Part of Noir-November

  “I don’t know how this ends, but I’d like it to.”

  Revenge. Dish. Cold. You know the drill. The wronged person orchestrating a vengeful plot, biding her time until just the right moment to unleash it. A flurry of poetic justice, stylishly rendered, vindicating our hero (while perhaps corrupting her). Rube Goldberg-ian machinations and infernal patience underlie the avenging angel’s scheme; the only open question is at what cost does she unleash her righteous fury.

  At the center of this oft-told tale stands a person of nearly superhuman competence, a person preternaturally capable of predicting others’ moves, a person of Swiss-watch precision in both attack and counterattack. He is no mere mortal—the phrase “avenging angel” is no…

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★ 6

  Kevin's older brother turned into such a badass.

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  Review by Michael James ★★★½ 2

  A well crafted minimalistic indie revenge thriller, one that cleverly utilizes the repercussions of a revenge act to create quite an intense and suspenseful narrative, that’s quite silent, grim and violent at the same time. It does go uneventful at some intervals, but the fresh perspective, occasional black comedy, raw emotions and the strong performances make it a convincingly gripping watch. Definitely worth a watch.

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  Review by 🎄 Leighton Trent 🎄 ★★★★ 6

  " [...] No speeches, no talking. You point the gun, You shoot the gun."

  A potboiler without a pot. There's grime, but it's not grimy. There's blood, but it's not bloody. There's violence, but it's not violent. There's inhumanity, but there's humanity also.

  The tension just boils and boils and boils. Saulnier lowers the heat and then turns it up all the way until we can't take it anymore and the postcard finally arrives in the last frame. This is the work of a craftsman using a fine tooth genre comb to searing minimalistic effect.