Metacritic reviews

As an action film — which in small bursts it is — Blue Ruin is disquieting and raw, like Commando turned inside out.

It’s easily the most suspenseful American film of the year, a thriller that feels like lightning across a quiet night sky; sudden, terrifying, and excitingly singular.

A feral and staggeringly well-conceived revenge saga.

A lean and suspenseful genre piece that follows a bloody trail of vengeance to its cruel, absurd and logical conclusion.

Appearing in almost every frame of Blue Ruin, Blair – who previously starred in "The Man From Orlando" and writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s first feature, "Murder Party" – owns this film.

Blue Ruin joins “Shotgun Stories” and “Joe” as vivid reminders that however homogenized American culture seems, there are still pockets that are distinct, with people who live by their own rules and their own bloody code.

Sparse of dialogue, terrifically ominous and full of low-key, high-quality performances, Blue Ruin is a vigilante tale even haters like me can get behind.

By reducing its principals to stock figures in an extended chess game, it ends up providing steady, neatly staged thrills, but little else of substance.

Blue Ruin is a talented but sophomoric low-budgeter that straddles the divide between genre thriller and art piece with mixed results.

The result is a film that starts with a bang and ends with a shrug, but keeps us entertained throughout.