By Brian Viner
Published: 21:58 EST, 8 May 2014 | Updated: 11:07 EST, 9 May 2014
Blue Ruin (15)
Verdict: More revenge, brilliantly done
Rating: 
Blue Ruin is another revenge thriller, made with a tiny fraction of the budget used up by Sabotage — an astonishingly meagre $38,000 — but roughly twice as compelling. Now that's what I call a film with a message, not that anyone in Hollywood will heed it.
It opened in a limited way last week and I was pleased to catch up with it, because it is very good indeed, brilliantly orchestrated by writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, who carefully uses every frame to build mood and suspense.
At the film's core is an unshowy but memorable performance from Macon Blair as Dwight, a bushy-bearded drifter who takes shelter in a beaten-up old Pontiac (the 'blue ruin' of the film's title). Dwight's habit of breaking into houses to run himself a hot bath hints at a more comfortable background, and soon we learn how he landed on his uppers, having fallen apart following the murder of his parents years before.
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Mild man on the loose: Macon Blair in Blue Ruin
When a sympathetic policewoman then informs him that his parents' killer is about to be released from jail, Dwight resolves to add his own brand of justice.
But he is about as far from the gun-toting avenger embodied by the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of this world, or rather that world, as could possibly be imagined. Dwight is awkward, gentle, a rabbit caught in life's headlights.
He IS not harmless, though. And the mission brings structure and purpose to his aimless existence. He watches as the murderer, Wade Cleland, is released from jail into the welcoming arms of his family, and then follows him, fatefully, to a bar.
All this unfolds with very little dialogue; the first time we really hear Dwight speak is when he finds his estranged sister to tell her what he has done, and to warn her that Wade's family are now those seeking to take the law into their own hands.
It is a simple story, sparsely but stirringly told, and Saulnier uses it to make a statement about the terrifying ease with which Americans can arm themselves to the teeth. Good for him.
If politicians won't keep banging that particular drum, filmmakers should.
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