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Rating: The first meeting between Sam Raimi and Joel Coen took place in New York in 1980; Joel was specialized in editing commercials and music videos, while Sam was a young director seeking funds to shoot his first film, "The Evil Dead". A chemistry developed between the two, and the following year Joel found himself collaborating on the editing of Raimi's debut film. It would take another four years to see Raimi's second movie, while in the meantime, in 1984, Joel and his brother Ethan also made their directorial debut with the noir Blood Simple. The two "World's Most Maniacal Criminals" saw the light in 1985, with Sam Raimi still at the helm, while the screenplay was co-written by Sam, Joel, and Ethan. Raimi himself disowned the work due to the compromises he had to make with the financiers.
It's important to make clear from the start that the movie is by far inferior to the directorial debuts of its creators, but it is interesting to see how throughout the 86 minutes, the influences and styles of all three directors are felt.
Very Coenesque is the plot, once again a noir, featuring two exterminators (but also ready to be killers if needed), hired by a wealthy company leader to eliminate his business colleague. A series of unexpected events will complicate their work, including having to eliminate a series of troublesome witnesses, including a girl and a very clumsy security officer in love with her. While the plot has more than one point in common with Blood Simple, it's not the same content: there's no intent to highlight societal decay or human weaknesses. Here, and this is where Raimi's touch comes in, it immediately slips towards the ridiculous and surreal. The noir genre is overturned at its foundation with the same mechanism with which horror was handled in The Evil Dead.
The interest in the film practically ends here; despite Raimi's excellent direction, the plot is merely a pretext to stage a series of very cartoonish gags, mostly very predictable (the classic shot of a corridor with protagonists entering and exiting doors), others entertaining, like the weapon used by the killers that can be set to eliminate rats, men, or heroes simply by turning a knob. As a backdrop, we find an assorted repertoire of silent film sound effects and music (from classical to the typical noir sounds), and special effects that might have seemed old even back in the '80s. However, we must praise the protagonists, the two killers Paul L. Smith and Brion James, and the unlucky Reed Birney, while the great Bruce Campbell (star of The Evil Dead trilogy) only features in a minor role.
Ultimately, a film that manages to get a few laughs, but is mostly a whimsical blip in the careers of its respective creators.
RATING = 6
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