By Robert Scucci
| Published
Revenge thrillers are common and often follow the same formula: a guy wants revenge, and so he becomes a ruthless killing machine to track down and execute his archnemesis while taking out countless henchmen along the way. Revenge heroes are often similarly formulaic, possessing near-supernatural abilities to carry out their vigilante justice.
The revenge movie formula can be wildly entertaining, but sometimes you need more. 2013’s Blue Ruin is the movie that gave it to me. An average guy attempting to live out his revenge fantasy, one tragic misstep at a time.
Blue Ruin is the answer to the stale action movie vehicle problem, and it effortlessly, it flips the script.
John Wick If John Wick Was Inexperienced
Blue Ruin is a stripped-down version of a John Wick revenge plot with an inexperienced protagonist at its center. It plays out like a tragedy. If you read the movie’s plot rundown on Wikipedia, you’d think it was a comedy of errors of the highest caliber with an Ernest P. Worrell-type character bumbling through an ill-fated revenge plot.
Are We Really Doing This, Vern?
Preferring to play it straight, Blue Ruin introduces us to Dwight Evans, a broken man living on the streets, having never overcome the trauma of his parents’ murder at the hands of Wade Marshall Cleland Jr. The story picks up when Dwight is informed that Wade is being released from prison after serving a 20-year sentence for his crime, setting the rest of the movie’s events in motion.
Dwight is clearly a competent man despite his homelessness, which is made evident by his survival skills. He knows how to seek shelter from the elements and gauge the appropriate time to get a solid grocery haul from the dumpsters in his area. Given his ragged countenance, it’s obvious that he’s been successfully living this way for quite a while.
Blue Ruin’s Appeal
Despite Dwight’s innate survival skills in Blue Ruin, he doesn’t have a “particular set of skills” like Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills as seen in the Taken franchise. He doesn’t even know how to fire a gun, break into a car without injuring himself, or clean up a crime scene after a violent altercation.
Every revenge thriller trope is fully explored in Blue Ruin, and every misstep Dwight takes results in an unexpected form of collateral damage that he doesn’t have the wherewithal to anticipate in the heat of the moment.
Dwight attempts to slash the tire of Wade’s vehicle and severely cuts his own hand in the process. Dwight gets into a violent altercation at Wade’s known hangout, but loses his keys during the scuffle. Dwight needs a getaway car, and fast, after said altercation. Dwight hops into the car’s driver’s seat, which still has his knife hanging out of the tire.
Not A Comedy Of Errors, But A Tragedy
As Blue Ruin barrels through its second and third acts, Wade’s actions have an adverse compounding effect that initially seems extraordinary. However, it is the natural result of applying real-world rules to the revenge thriller formula as a regular guy tries to live out his John Wick fantasy.
It may be that Dwight isn’t necessarily the hero in this story. He’s just the protagonist.
Overlooked commercially upon its release, Blue Ruin is a low-budget, high-concept reinterpretation of the revenge thriller genre as you know and love it. As of this writing, you can stream the title for free on Tubi.
