Blue Ruin, Various Cinemas

If you like your cinematic thrills tightly wound and your humour black and rich, then don’t miss Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier’s backcountry-gothic American thriller. With crossbow wielding assassins, hordes of pursuing angry thugs and reports of a notoriously gruesome self-surgery scene, it is hard not to be excited by Saulnier’s nail-biting revenge story. 

The plot follows a small-town outsider Dwight (Macon Blair) whose itinerant lifestyle is turned upside down when he returns to his childhood home to pursue an act of vengeance. As Dwight’s misfortunes amass he finds himself the catalyst for a cocktail of violence as mobs of armed gangsters become entangled in a crescendo of bloodshed. Comparisons to No Country For Old Men, the Coen brothers’ Oscar winning masterpiece of 2007, are to be welcomed and Saulnier has said he wanted the film to be, "No Country except the protagonist is a total idiot"’. 

The director’s pitch-black comedic tone found its feet in his previous feature Murder Party, a macabre tale in which a resident is taken captive by the hosts of a seemingly benign costume party. Murder Party’s bold tone was rewarded and went on to win the top prize at the Slamdance Film Festival. Blue Ruin is likewise no stranger to awards and although its completion was touch and go – relying on a last minute Kickstarter campaign to keep it in production – Saulnier’s roll of the dice paid off and the movie was eventually screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at Cannes where it won the FIPRESCI Prize.

Blue Ruin sees the continued collaboration of Saulnier and Macon Blair, who also headed the cast of Murder Party, with the added promise of a strong comic performance from Devin Ratray. Most of us will remember Ratray as big brother Buzz from Home Alone but his markedly funny and nuanced performance in last year’s Oscar nominated Nebraska suggests he is in the midst of a renaissance. 

With a hard-hitting cast to compliment Saulnier’s uniquely twisted style, this is a movie that promises to be a thrilling (and very funny) ride.