Breaking the mold of the revenge thriller, director Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin avoids numbing caricatures and limp cliches. Its edge-of-your-seat suspense is earned through sharp editing and tight composition yet what propels its intriguing storyline more than anything is its nervous, apologetic main character, Dwight Evans (Macon Blair). A train wreck of a human being, Dwight grabs the viewer’s attention from the film’s outset, when we figure him for a homeless man.
Soon we learn the man who is responsible for Dwight’s life having fallen apart is prematurely getting out of prison. Dwight wastes no time settling the score; Saulnier wastes no scenes on fanciful filler. Then, his appearance drastically changed, Dwight enters the dangerous world of damage control. Protecting his sister and her children from a violent family that means business as far as retaliation, Dwight’s David has no trouble gaining our full sympathy as he goes up against the Goliath of a family deep in personnel and deeper in loutishness.
Saulnier, who won a critics’ award at Cannes for the film, shows superb control and packs more than a few surprises along with nicely timed witticisms. Dwight comes off like a refuge from a chess convention who suddenly woke up and found a gun in his hands. It’s a truly impressive performance. A common flaw of thrillers is their denouement often deflates the rest of the film’s buildup. Although Blue Ruin starts off with a genuine bang, it manages to maintain its momentum, and even if its ending isn’t its strong point, the film avoids getting its backbone ripped out. Sitting through this darkly original low-budget film likely will rip a few hairs off your head, though.