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When you have no job, no money and an extensive criminal record, having children doesn’t seem to be a very good idea, if you ask me. When a local businessman and his wife give birth to quintuplets, however, Edwina concocts a plan to relieve the new parents of their most photogenic bundle of joy. In real life, kidnappings rarely go as planned, and in an eccentric PG-13 comedy like Raising Arizona, they never do. Between his meddling boss, a couple of bumbling escaped convicts and the most intimidating bounty hunter since Boba Fett (who wouldn’t stand a chance, by the way), Hi finds it difficult to keep his clandestine new “family” together. And Edwina is wracked by guilt over the abominable nature of their crime.

While I am sure this probably doesn’t sound like a comedy, the nature of the Coen catalogue is that nothing is ever quite what it seems to be on the surface. Gritty thrillers like Fargo contain elements of unlikely humor that channel already grim source material into a macabre morality tale. Likewise, comedies such as Raising Arizona possess a sort of mean-spirited surrealism that makes it easy to like almost universally unlikable characters, and typically sets up a surprisingly uplifting parable in the final act.

Part of the appeal of the Coens to their fans is the fact that a drama as dour as No Country for Old Men is just a quick rewrite away from being as bizarrely humorous as Raising Arizona, and vice versa. I’m convinced that with relatively minor changes to just a handful of scenes, The Big Lebowski is no longer a comedy – it’s a sick, morbidly amusing extortion drama. That’s an unsettling dichotomy, but whether you’re a Coen devotee or not, you have to admit it makes for effective and memorable entertainment.

It also is the most common criticism leveled at the Coens, and Raising Arizona in particular. The humor is a little mean spirited, and the characterizations within the film would seem to be something of a condescending swipe at Red State culture. Yet I would suggest that this is more a stylistic touch rather than a patronizing one. We could just as easily come down on the film for making light of child abduction – no laughing matter in reality, but Raising Arizona makes it clear from the beginning that what we’re about to see is anything but reality.

A Coen comedy trademark is the construction of modern fables, complete with environments that exist in a slightly surreal world parallel to our own. Here, the laws of physics, logic and time aren’t exactly what we’re used to but it is meant to underscore the fact that what you’re seeing is utterly fictional. More often than not, the characters are regional or class exaggerations, intended to make them distinct or sympathetic. If anything, the mean streak present in most Coen comedy is – in my opinion – borne more out of disdain for their characters than for the audience. Hi and Edwina are the protagonists of Raising Arizona, but they’re also ignorant rubes who need to be taught a lesson and the meat grinder they are put through by their creators is meant to do just that.

Over the years, I’ve vacillated between liking this film a lot and liking it a little, and I think the primary reason would be the movie’s peculiar tone. But each time I’ve seen it, I find that as with most of the comedies produced by the Brothers Coen, the final act brings the film together and tightens all the story threads into a pleasing bundle that fits nicely into your heart. Most of the characters in Raising Arizona are in severe need of redemption, but in the end they either find it or they get what’s coming to them – and as the viewer it’s hard to argue with the results. But more than anything you’re made to realize that there’s the potential for good in the most unlikely people, and the willingness to take your time looking for it can make all the difference in the world.

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