Without giving the plot away, I can still remember watching this at the movies and squirming at the conclusion of the movie when I realised what was happening.

This was the first film where William H Macy came to my attention and I found his performance wonderful. He play Jerry who is a car salesman who hatches a plan to extort money from his father in law by hiring two kidnappers to kidnap his wife. The problem comes when the two kidnappers are loose canons and Jerry rapidly loses control of the situation. Marge (McDormand) plays the police chief investigating the various crimes and is also heavily pregnant.

The Coen's sneakily promoted that this film was a true story or based on a true story. Fortunately this wasn't true and the film is gripping throughout with several excellent performances. 9/10