SUMMARY OF THE STORY
Jerry Lundegaard, a sales manager at an Oldsmobile
dealership in Minneapolis , was driving through a bleak, snowy landscape, towing a
Cutlass Ciera. He arrived at a bar
in Fargo, North Dakota to meet with two criminals, Carl Showalter and Gaear
Grimsrud. He had arranged for them
to kidnap his wife Jean, back in Minnesota in order to extort ransom money from his father-in-law, Wade Gustafson. He promised them a cut of the ransom
money—and the brand new Ciera, which he had
stolen from his own company's lot.
He was planning
to take a million dollars in ransom from Wade and leave the kidnappers with
only $80,000. Carl and Gaear agreed.
They visited a couple of prostitutes
at a truck stop before heading to Minneapolis.
Jerry almost called
off the plan when Wade seemed
ready to go in on a real-estate deal with him, but it turned out Wade wasn't
really going to let him get in on the deal in a big way. So, the kidnapping
went as planned.
However, things started
to go seriously wrong when Carl and Gaear got
pulled over by a state trooper on the highway. Gaear shot the state trooper in the head, and then killed a couple that had witnessed
the crime while driving by.
Marge Gunderson, the movie's heroine and main
character was the chief of police in
Brainerd, Minnesota, near where the bodies of Gaear's victims were found. She managed to interview the prostitutes who slept with Gaear and Carl, and started
to uncover their trail. She was a
nice, cheerful, smart cop. She also happened
to be seven months pregnant.
Meanwhile Marge got
a lead on a guy who had received some phone calls from Gaear and Carl. She showed up at Jerry's dealership to ask
him about a missing Ciera reported to be driven by the suspects.
Wade wanted to take an important role in freeing his daughter from her kidnappers. Carl told Jerry to bring him the money to a parking garage but
Wade rushed out ahead of him,
bringing the suitcase with a million dollars. Carl was unhappy that Wade had arrived instead of Jerry. When Wade demanded to see his daughter, Carl shot and killed him, but he managed
to shoot Carl in the jaw before he died.
Marge, still on the trail of the Ciera, went back to interview Jerry again. He freaked out under the pressure of
Marge's questioning, and escaped.
Carl hid
the million dollars in the snow, planning on getting it later. He brought back forty thousand for Gaear,
who had been watching Jean at their
remote cabin hideout. Gaear, annoyed with Jean for being too noisy, had killed her. Carl returned to the hideout, and after an
argument about who got the Ciera,
Gaear murdered Carl with an ax.
After one of her officers picked up a lead from a local
bartender, Marge discovered the
criminals' hideout, where Gaear was
busy putting Carl's body through a wood chipper. She shot, injured, and
successfully arrested him. Marge said she just couldn´t understand what motivates people to do these terrible
things.
Meanwhile, the cops tracked Jerry down to a motel where he was trying to flee, Marge and her husband, Norm, were peacefully watching TV in bed and
happily awaiting the birth of their child.
1-QUESTIONS:
1.
What are Jerry
Lundegaard's motives for staging this kidnapping?
2.
What's going on
in Gaear Grimsrud's head?
3.
Is Mike
Yanagita´s scene meaningless in the film?
4.
What causes
people to become criminals? What are the differences (and similarities) between
Jerry's motives and the motives of Carl and Gaear?
5.
Will anyone ever
find that suitcase?
6.
What makes Marge
and Norm's marriage happy?
7.
What are Jerry's
feelings towards his wife, son, and father-in-law?
8 What are the comedic elements that lighten up this gruesome story?
4-CLICK HERE TO READ A REPORT ABOUT CRIME IN MOVIES
4-CLICK HERE TO READ A REPORT ABOUT CRIME IN MOVIES
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario