* 1/2 1985 , r , 96 minutes [1 hour , 36 minutes] [drama/crime] starring : john getz ( ray ) , frances mcdormand ( abby ) , dan hedaya ( marty ) , m . emment walsh ( p . i . ) , produced by ethan coen , written by ethan and joel coen , directed by joel coen . " blood simple " acts like some kind of genius , psychological thriller , but all i saw was one of those b movies they show on uhf stations at 3 a . m . it is a fair attempt at making a good , macabre , crime story , but not much works here . the story revolves around some hick town in texas where a young woman , abby ( mcdormand ) , is cheating on her husband marty ( hedaya ) with ray , one of the bartenders ( getz as ray ) at marty's strip club . we don't learn much about the affair except that marty must be the typical , insanely jealous type . they sleep at the ray's house , and then somewhere else , but nothing happens to create for a plot . the story lingers on events that are of absolutely no importance to the rest of the of story as a whole . there is some dialogue pushing the story along , but it isn't very interesting because they're not talking about anything relevant . marty meets a generic p . i . ( walsh ) who seems too bubbly and happy compared to marty's nearly psychotic attitude . the two characters clash like polkadots and plaid . this isn't anything moody or intense , it's just plain dumb and boring . marty wants the p . i . to kill abby and ray , and so the p . i . stalks the two , and forms an insane obsession with them . meanwhile , abby and ray get their own apartment in order to stop marty from harassing them , but suddenly the story becomes even more bizarre when the p . i . kills marty . from here on the events are just too strange to comprehend . it's not artistically surrealistic , it's just typical b movie trash disguised as an intricate crime story . the characters all seem to be going crazy and there's no explanation for this insanity . the film essentially becomes a horror flick by the end with three dead bodies and no reasoning . " blood simple " definitely has a tremendous amount of potential , but its organization and execution are too bizarre for its own good . visit chad'z movie page @ <a href= " http : //members . aol . com/chadpolenz/index . html " >http : //members . aol . com/chadpolenz/index . html</a> 
