“Raising Arizona”

What a unique sense of humour the Coen brothers have! After working as editors on cheap slasher films, they emerged as a talented writer/producer/director team. It’s apparent early in their filmmaking career in “Raising Arizona”, one of the earliest films. “Raising Arizona” tells the story of H.I. (Nicholas Cage) and Ed (Holly Hunter). H.I. and Ed are unable to conceive a child, and so, in an act of desperation, they kidnap one of the Arizona quints.

The best parts of the film are the characters and dialogue. The film is full of obligatory characters that do little more than offer quirky comic relief. There are H.I.’s cellmates, co-workers, his boss and grotesque family as well as Ed’s fellow officers (“Don’t forget your bouquet, Ed”). The brothers go the extra mile to develop their characters, regardless of how small the role.

Take the opening sequence that’s almost a montage. H.I. and Ed’s stories are told swiftly, under an up-tempo banjo score. A cellmate simply grunts at H.I. Another goes on and on about boiling crawdads. Somehow, it’s all hilarious while serving a purpose, covering a lot of ground quickly so the kidnapping plot can get going.

Cage and Hunter are terrific as the desperate couple. Both of their performances are intentionally over-the-top and over-exaggerated. When the film came out in the mid-1980s, the film must have seemed highly eccentric. But in light of the subsequent films of the Coen brothers, “Raising Arizona” foreshadows a pair of distinctive and brilliant voices in cinema.