The revenge thriller has a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Prime Video has just added Blue Ruin, the extremely tense US indie revenge thriller movie from 2013.
The film centres around Dwight (Macon Blair, Oppenheimer), a homeless drifter who returns to his hometown intending to exact brutal revenge for the deaths of his parents years previously.
While carrying out his vengeance, however, things do not go according to plan. Suddenly, Dwight finds himself and his remaining family being hunted.
Blue Ruin was the breakthrough project for actor Blair and writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, who would go on to collaborate on the equally brilliant thriller Green Room and the also very good thriller Hold the Dark.
Saulnier also had a 2024 Netflix hit with the movie Rebel Ridge.
Looking back, it is easy to see why Blue Ruin was so acclaimed upon its release – with its unpredictable plot, its sense of gritty realism, its nearly consistently tense atmosphere and its thoughtful exploration of the fallout of violence and revenge.
Holding a whopping 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, here is a sample of some of the many glowing reviews the film earned:
Chicago Reader: “Saulnier makes impressive use of silence and slow camera movements, allowing the suspense to simmer until violence seems practically inevitable.”
Chicago Sun-Times: “You couldn’t ask for a more unlikely avenger than the ill-equipped sort-of hero of Blue Ruin, and that’s precisely why it’s far, far more suspenseful than the typical violent revenge thriller.”
Entertainment Weekly: “With the same brand of realist irony the Coens used to cool down Blood Simple, writer-director Jeremy Saulnier slows the genre’s heartbeat to gripping effect.”
Observer (UK): “A stripped-down tale of revenge with bloodied hands and a blackened heart, this viscerally intelligent thriller takes a new stab at an old genre with refreshingly distressing results.”
USA Today: “Blue Ruin is the rare film that is nearly consistently tense, the suspense only temporarily subsiding about an hour into the story. It’s a welcome respite.”
Variety: “A lean and suspenseful genre piece that follows a bloody trail of vengeance to its cruel, absurd and logical conclusion.”
How to watch Blue Ruin
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Blue Ruin is now available to stream on Prime Video in the UK and Ireland.