Raising Arizona

Intelligent,Whimsical Comedy, 19 October 2008

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom


Firstly, I should make it clear that this review is 21 years after release. Consequently, it is possible to look at this in the context of a considerable body of work. Such a perspective serves this film well. The Coen brothers are good at narrative script,character and situation. All three are worked to the full here.

Sometimes you question quite how clever the Coen's are, when you do, you realise the answer is "very". What they do is put caricatures in absurd situations, then draw out everyday truth and humour from the story.The sets are frequently deliberately "staged", the parents of a soon to be kidnapped child are sat on what appears to be a theatre stage, rather than a front room.The kidnappers trailer opens out into a vast condo set inside - and you don't care.

The story itself is simple, a habitual convict marries a cop, she discovers she cannot conceive, so they kidnap one of a set of Quintuplets on the basis that the parents have more than they can handle.Some escaped cons who resolve that they have "taken all that prison has to offer" in turn kidnap the child for the reward money pursued by a Bounty hunter.

Visually the film veers from the surreal, the Bounty hunter is straight out of "Mad Max", to the engaging,when Nicholas Cage, playing the recidivist convict kidnaps one of the Quins from their cot.Intriguingly this later scene is shot with a light humorous touch, echoing "Three Men and a Baby".

The script resolutely refuses to follow any moral logic or sense of consequence, what it does instead is to relish and explore how the characters behave in bizarre, extraordinary situations.You either buy into it, or you don't. I did.