Coen Brothers paved their way to the American film making elite by making quirky “artsy” and very dark comedies, often described as triumphs of style over substance. At the beginning of their career they still experimented with that formula. Their second film, 1987 comedy Raising Arizona, stands out as their most light-hearted and upbeat film.

The protagonist and narrator, played by Nicolas Cage, is Herbert I. “Hi” McDunnough, small-time criminal who gets arrested so often that he befriended and fell in love with Edwina “Ed” (played by Holly Hunter), policewoman in charge of taking his photographs. After his latest time in prison, he decides to turn the new page of life and become ordinary law-abiding citizen. He marries Ed and gets regular job, but their idyllic life together is marred by absence of children. When Ed turns out to be infertile, both spouses are devastated. Ed, however, learns about Nathan Arizona (played by Trey Wilson), local tycoon whose wife just had quintuplets. Thinking that it is unfair that one family can so many children while they can’t have even one, she talks Hi into abducting one of the babies. Hi takes little Nathan Jr., to their home and they are happy until two of Hi’s former cellmates – Gale (played by John Goodman) and Evelle Snoats (played by William Forsythe) – come to seek shelter after escaping the prison. Life for McDunnough’s gets further complicated when Nathan Arizona offers huge reward for return of his son, which brings Leonard Smalls (played by Randall “Tex” Cobb), menacing and relentless motorcycle-riding bounty hunter.

Set in Arizona, part of America’s Flyover Country that Coens love to depict in their films, Raising Cain benefits a lot from brilliant cinematography by Barry Sonenfeld, cinematographer and Coens’ old associate who puts both its desert locations and small town suburbia to good use. Film is unusual for celebrating traditional family values and setting middle class lifestyle as an ideal people should strive for, very much in line with sentiments of Reagan’s America (although, in one brief scene, Hi seems to blame Reagan or his advisers for economic woes that turned him to crime). The audience, however, would probably fail to notice some “deep” subtext or content, because of the barrage of grotesque but often funny scenes in which Coens use fast editing and strange camera shots to create surreal atmosphere but also provide a lot of humour. In many ways, Raising Arizona, with its relentless mayhem, looks like Tex Avery’s cartoon, especially in the robbery scene at the middle of the film, which transforms into chase where protagonist have to deal with vicious dogs, overenthusiastic and gun crazy store employee and police cars.

Joel Coen’s directing style is very much in line with the way the cast, especially those in supporting roles, play its roles. Almost everyone goes over the top, trying to make their characters pompous, menacing or idiotic. Yet, Coens in the script tend to give at least a bit of humanity for each of them, with exception of almost demonic Smalls (whose costume and props point to influence of Mad Max films) and Hi’s foreman Glen (played by Sam McMurray) who tries to engage with McDonnoughs in activity quite against conservative and family-friendly sentiments of Reagan’s America. Nicolas Cage, actor known for going over the top, is here quite subdued, playing the character who, despite few mistakes, generally wants to do the right thing and gets rewarded for learning his lessons in the end. Holly Hunter, who appears in her first major screen role, is unusually restrained and plays arguably the only “normal” character in the film. While quality of humour varies at times and some scenes seem redundant (like the one in which Snoats react over-emotionally), audience usually doesn’t have much time to notice such flaws because of the flawless editing. With running time of hour and half, Raising Arizona is easily digestible and very entertaining comedy. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be one of rare commercial successes in Coens’ career; now it is unjustifiably obscured by some of Coens’ later works that reached cult status.

RATING: 7/10 (++)

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