Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Alison Tolman, Bob Odenkirk, Keith Carradine, Kate Walsh, Joshua Clegg, Joey King, Shawn Doyle, Brian Markinson, Kelly Holden Basher, Tom Musgrave, Julie Ann Emery, Rachel Blanchard, Kevin O’ Grady, Atticus Mitchell, Liam Green, Brian Jensen, Dave Trimble, Andrew McKenzie, Karen Johnson-Diamond, Lori Ravensborg, Michelle Thrush, Spencer Drever, Sam Duke, Darrell Orydzuk, Ben Wong, Lydia Lau, Susan Park, Carolyn Bridget Kennedy, Ryan Suffesick.

There are so few classic films that transfer easily to the cinemas smaller, slightly more adaptable, often more hollow cousin that is television. Fargo, one of the finest films of the 1990s, is one of those original pictures that has made the jump to the small screen with absolute ease and it a welcome addition to the schedule that at times seems to delve far too quickly into the world of tacky and dull.

When a stranger comes to town and runs into a recently injured salesman, a man who has taken so much from his nagging, jealous wife, a brother who disowns him and who even openly tells him that he tells people that he is dead, there can only be rouble in store for the citizens of the flat, snow driven state. For Lester Nygaard, his day is only just beginning to get weird and creepy.

Part of the attraction to the show is the group of actors weaved together, like a poisonous pregnant spider building the biggest web of deceit for the abundance of flies it aims to entrap, especially in the casting of Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard and Billy Bob Thornton as Lorne Malvo. Two very different actors, two unusually excellent artistes, put together in a way that sparks can only fly. Like mixing electricity and water, the flow should never be looked upon as a scientific experiment for the fear of fall out that will result, however this potent mix, this dark test of casting is sublime and inspiring.

For Martin Freeman, the last ten years has seen him become one of the hottest British actors around and it is no wonder. As the put down, hen-pecked, constantly criticised and bullied Lester Nygaard, Martin Freeman excels in exactly the same way as he does in Sherlock and as the young Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit. An actor who can turn his hand to righteous anger and indignant unresolved surprise in an instant and alongside Billy Bob Thornton has found another actor in the mould of Benedict Cumberbatch to spar on screen with.

Billy Bob Thornton maintains his position as one of the most remarkable actors of his generation by portraying the devilish manipulating and with a single phrase, thought influencing Lorne Malvo. The relationship between the two men is somehow comparable to the relationship between Marlowe’s Faustus and the malevolence he sells his soul to. The push in which a man needs to tip him over the edge given by a simple word, a nod to the path that he always avoids and the sudden snap in the brain when the push becomes too much to bear. It takes two actors of quality to play this sort of unhinged, unravelling humanity and in both Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman, the writers and casting agents have completely got it right.

Fargo has all the hallmarks of being the television series of 2014. Courageous, self-confident, violent and utterly compelling, Fargo is a winning formula combining the very best of cinema and the time that a television series can give to a story when done right.

Ian D. Hall