The multiple murders not only brings in our crime genre avengers, but also represents a tonal shift. Without this violent event Wade would not have had to become involved in person and our heroine Marge need not enter the film late, or at all. The incompetence and stupidity of the characters in this scene represents the hook of the film. The latter would never have occurred if our kidnapper duo had not first attempted to bribe a police officer, shot said police officer and then failed to quickly remove the body. For Wade it is his daughter’s kidnap and for Marge it is the gunning down of a random police officer and the witnesses.

The motivators for the avengers are instead given to other victims that see minimal screen time. The role of the victim is present but its purpose, to illicit the action of the avenger is absent from the main cast. Carl too is both a criminal for murder and a victim, seen in his own grizzly end post being shot in the face he is fed through a wood chipper. Jerry is a victim of his own incompetence, but also the instigator of crime in the film. The roles are all present: victim, criminal and avenger are all accounted for but their definitions are mixed or made unclear. Without fail Fargo upholds this tradition, but at the same time toys with it through characterisation. 13) states that ‘Every crime story predicates three leading roles: the criminal who commits the crime, the victim who suffers it, and the avenger’. In order to fully assess whether the Coen brothers are really re-inventors of the genre or just pointlessly undermining it one should first be familiar with the crime film and how Fargo uses and forgoes its staples. To have an independent and genre subversive film, the established commercial and standardised form must also exist independence is a ‘relative term’. The Coen brothers cannot help but rely on an audience understanding of crime as an established genre to craft their film. Whilst challenging the tropes that crime films typically adhere to, Fargo is still vastly derivative of the crime genre. In doing so the film carries the co-directors’ nihilistic theme. The Coen brothers have used and discarded conventions of the crime film as sporadically as Fargo’s plot mashes together its scenes. The film Fargo is subversive of the crime genre, it uses a unique perspective in its understanding of, and portrayal of the characters to unsettle viewer expectations built on crime clichés.

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