Blue Ruin is a 2013 American thriller film directed by Jeremy Saulnier. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight section on May 17, 2013, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. Saulnier funded production on the film through a successful Kickstarter campaign, which MTV.com called "the perfect example of what crowdfunding can accomplish."
The film was released to theaters and VOD on April 25, 2014.
Blue Ruin Plot:
A mysterious outsider's quiet life is turned upside down when he return to his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance. Proving himself an amateur assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.
Dwight (Macon Blair) is a beach vagrant, living out of his car and scavenging through trash cans and dumpsters for food and money. A policewoman finds Dwight and gives him the news that Wade Cleland, the man who murdered his parents, is soon to be released from prison. Dwight watches as Wade is released from prison and, after unsuccessfully trying to steal a gun, sources a knife. Dwight confronts Wade in a club's toilet and, after a brief fight, fatally stabs him in the temple.
While trying to escape Dwight realizes he left his car keys in the toilet with Wade's body, so he is forced to steal the Cleland Gang's limousine. Dwight stops and lets a teenage boy out of the back of the limousine. Dwight, after cleaning up his looks, visits his sister for the first time in several years. Over an emotional conversation in a cafe, Dwight reveals that he has killed Wade. His sister is shocked, but appears happy with the news. Dwight also says he assumed she would have heard on the news, in which moment he realizes it hasn't been on the news, meaning the Cleland Gang never contacted the police and are likely seeking their own revenge on Dwight.
While his sister is gone, Dwight pitches up in her house to wait for the inevitable attack from the Clelands. He tries to escape the two that break into the house but is shot in the leg with an arrow. He manages to run one of the men over and places his unconscious body into the trunk of his car. He attempts home surgery on the wound, but is unable to extract it and must visit a local hospital. After waking up in the hospital he travels to meet an old high school friend to ask for a favor. He persuades the friend to lend him a rifle before traveling to a field to negotiate with the man in his trunk in a bid to guarantee that the Clelands leave his sister alone.
The man in the trunk manages to wrestle Dwight's newly borrowed rifle from him and, as he is aiming at Dwight lying on the ground, Dwight's friend fatally shoots him. During the conversation between Dwight and the man it is revealed that Wade was not his parent's killer, but it was in fact Wade's father, who died of cancer - his motive being that Dwight's father was having an affair with his wife. Wanting to leave him out of it, Dwight breaks the friends car so he cannot follow him any further and he travels to the Cleland household. He urinates on the grave of Wade's father and leaves a message on the answering machine. Dwight buries the man that his friend shot.
When the Cleland family return, they hear the message from Dwight. In the message, Dwight was asking for them to leave his sister alone as the score is now equal in terms of family members murdered. When it's clear that the Clelands won't agree to this, Dwight shoots a male member of the family. The teenage boy from the limousine, who Dwight does not know is present, shoots Dwight with a shotgun. Dwight hits the boy's shotgun away and states that he has "done his job", as he thinks he will die from the shotgun wound. Dwight asks the boy to leave using his car in the woods, and tells him that he is actually his half brother (from the affair between the parents). In a rage, an older woman reaches for a machine gun hidden under a table and shots are fired. Dwight kills the remaining two women and, while laying on the floor spitting blood from his mouth, repeatedly whispers "the keys are in the car".
