For my money the Coen Brothers were, from the moment they started making movies, two of the most consistently impressive and imaginative filmmakers working in American cinema. From their wonderfully dark, noir-ish debut Blood Simple, they have tackled a string of genres and every time have come up with something completely new. Raising Arizona was an extraordinary, kinetic comedy of family, devotion and disaster, Miller's Crossing put a new slant on the gangster movie, The Hudsucker Proxy was a surrealistic take on the cinema of Frank Capra and Barton Fink was a nightmare spin on the rookie-comes-to-Hollywood tale. For some the road to Fargo has been an uneven one, but I would champion every one of the aforementioned as cinema of the highest order. Barton Fink I regard as a dyed-in-the-wool masterpiece, but like all their preceding films it reached an unfairly narrow audience. It was considered just too odd, too 'out there' for many. I know, however, that I was not the only one who sat there slack jawed with amazement as the film unfolded. I knew I was watching genius at work. I guess it was in part because of this history that I was both surprised and unsurprised by the widespread critical acclaim that greeted Fargo – unsurprised because this is what they've been doing all along, making astonishingly individual and imaginative films with great characters and super-smart scripts, but surprised because it seemed to have taken so many others so long to wake up to the fact. Unlike its predecessors, Fargo seemed to work for just about everybody. The joy is that this was not the result of any sort of compromise on the part of the filmmakers – Fargo is a quintessential Coen Brothers film: quirky, inventive, wonderfully performed, original, and like nothing else around.

The set-up is seemingly straightforward but pleasingly and expectedly offbeat. Car salesman Jerry Lundegaard has money problems, something he is intending to put right by hiring two would-be kidnappers to abduct his wife and demand a ransom of her wealthy father Wade – who has no time at all for Jerry – the intention being to split the ransom money evenly with his criminal cohorts. Almost nothing goes to plan. The kidnappers have an attitude from the start both with Jerry and each other, and after a clumsy abduction, events take a very serious turn for the worse when a patrolman who stops them and two passing motorists are brutally slain (in a scene that directly references a key sequence in Blood Simple). Enter Marge Gunderson, Fargo's heavily pregnant female chief of police, who is charged with the job of putting the pieces together to solve this multiple homicide.

Fargo is on the surface a police drama, but unlike any you've ever laid eyes on. Set in an area of Minnesota where most of the residents are of Scandinavian descent, the accents make even the delivery of straightforward lines unique, and the relentless cheerful attitude of the locals gives all scenes an often peculiarly bizarre sense of optimism. As so often with the Coens, character is key and here it brings a joy to almost every action and line of dialogue, effectively rendering even the seemingly familiar in a completely new light. We've seen police looking over the bodies of murder victims countless times before, but I guarantee you've never watched the chief of police stop with seeming surprise in the middle of the investigation and bend over as if discovering a vital new clue, only to reveal that she is suffering from morning sickness.

This is a film about greed, loneliness, self-interest and stupidity. Jerry is married with a young son, and he not only feels unable to share his rapidly deteriorating financial problems with his wife, but is willing to put her through the trauma of a kidnapping in the hope of correcting the situation. Would-be kidnappers Carl and Gaear, meanwhile, are so pettily self-motivated that they eventually come to blows not over the substantial ransom, but over who is going to take the car they had thrown in with the deal. Marge's old school friend Mike Yanagita's desperation for companionship prompts him to make a complete spectacle of himself in front of her, and even Marge's husband Norm is so caught up in the painting competition he has entered that he never once asks Marge – a pregnant woman investigating a multiple shooting – how her day has gone. But in other ways Marge and Norm are the stability at the centre of spiraling chaos – their love for each other is genuine and rather touching and the two appear most content with their lives as they are, the flipside of Jerry's marital discontent. It is just one unusal aspect of the in a film that bristles with them that we are a good third of the way into the story before Marge, who some will see as the central character, makes her first appearance.

Part of Fargo's delight comes from it's near perfect melding of character and narrative – neither suffers at the expense of the other, and in the tradition of great storytelling the narrative is propelled forward at every turn by the protagonists. At the core is a superb screenplay that lays out the story and dialogue in precise detail, even down to Jerry's seemingly improvised umms and ahhs when attempting to negotiate with the kidnappers. There is a stylised yet somehow 'real' quality to the dialogue and its delivery, most apparent in the work of the smaller roles: the two girls interviewed about having sex with the kidnappers; the upset customer who struggles with his own natural politeness to angrily call Jerry "a f...f...fucking liar!"; the old man who interrupts clearing his yard to deliver a hilariously deadpan witness statement to the visiting trooper...there isn't a single character, no matter how brief their screen time, who doesn't leave an impression in some way.

Of course, this is in no small part due to the performances, which are uniformly excellent. Francis McDormand won an Oscar for her portrayal of Marge Gunderson, and for once it was richly deserved – this is a great part, wonderfully written, but McDormand brings so much to it, making every line and gesture register, from the everyday – her joyful "Hiya hon!" one finding Norm waiting for her at the police station – to the memorably offbeat – "Was he funny looking apart from that?" she smilingly asks a girl of a male suspect after being told that he wasn't circumcised. William H. Macy is at the top of his considerable form as the hapless Jerry Lundegaard, his doom-laden, nervous uncertainty about just about everything wonderfully communicated through facial expression and body language, often shining in the smallest of moments, a favourite being his frustrated attempts to clean ice of his windscreen that degenerates into a manic, angry flailing of arms, only to see him eventually return, resigned, to his original task. Steve Buscemi finally moves up from Coen bit part player to major role as the wonderfully sleazy would-be kidnapper Carl – unlikable at times to the point of infuriating, yet somehow still a compelling screen figure, his endless, often directionless chatter is counterbalanced nicely by Peter Stormare's surly silence as Gaear, whose true colours remain hidden until the unfortunate roadside encounter with the police.

Whether or not this is the Coen Brothers' best film yet remains a matter of opinion – it remains their most critically acclaimed and is the perfect introduction to their work. As a drama it is compelling and multi-layered, as a character study it is a constant delight – it's funny, scary, violent, tender and richly imaginative throughout. Is it their best film? Well, maybe it is after all. And there's no higher praise than that.

Fargo was previously released on region 2 DVD by Polygram and there have been a few reviews of this new MGM special edition that have complained about the poor quality of the transfer on the earlier disk, but frankly this is nonsense, though I have no doubt some reviews are just repeating what they have read elsewhere rather than actually comparing the disks side-by side. The image on the original Polygram release is for the most part sharp and clear with good colour rendition; the bitrate is a little low and this does result in some visible artefacting in places. Some scenes do seem to lack a certain punch and the sharpness is not as consistent as it should be, but it's still a highly watchable transfer. Compare the screen grabs below – the top ones are from the Polygram original, the bottom from the MGM special edition reviewed here.

At this size the Polygram version actually looks superior, but blown up on a large widescreen TV the MGM special edition most definitely has the edge in almost every respect, but not to the degree claimed elsewhere. The picture on the MGM disk is consistently sharp, with no artefacting and solid colours and blacks. It is not as bright as the Polygram disk, but the transfer on the MGM disk just feels more 'right'. In short it looks great. Just one thing, the picture on the MGM disk appears to be very slightly cropped down on all sides from that on the Polygram disk (again, check the grabs above) – which is correct is hard to say, but TV overscan tends to render them almost identical, although the mnor windowboxing of the MGM transfer may well balance this out.

Where the two disks do differ substantially is on sound. The Polygram release had a rather flat Dolby 2.0 track, while the MGM has a 5.1 remix. This is not a particularly full mix, but has a far greater range than on the earlier release and really comes into its own when the lower frequencies are engaged.

The original Polygram release was almost devoid of extras, but that in itself was not such a surprise – such was the fate of most Coen Brothers releases. Here the MGM disk is clearly superior, boasting a small but on the whole useful set of extras.

With The Man Who Wasn't There the only Coen disk to date to feature a straight-up commentary track (I'm not counting the parodic one on the region 1 Blood Simple), such a contribution here from the boys would have been welcome, but it was not to be. Instead we have a commentary from Roger Deakins, the Coen's regular director of photography after Barry Sonnenfeld moved on to directing. I was looking forward to this, having bought the disk shortly before I was about to shoot my first digital feature as DoP, and I was hoping to get a few tips from one of the masters. Initially I was a little disappointed on all fronts – Deakins wasn't chatty enough and, worst of all, wasn't talking about lighting and camerawork. Others may be relieved at this, of course. Though the lapses do continue throughout, and some of Deakins' comments are clearly the result of unheard questioning, a great deal of good stuff does emerge, and later on even some info on lighting for us camera types. The problems of working in sub-zero temperatures, having to fake snow with an ice-chipper, the decision to tone down the previously kinetic camera style to take a more observational approach, the importance of pre-production planning and more are all covered in reasonable and interesting detail. On the whole, this is a pretty good track.

The documentary, Minnesota Nice, is presented 4:3 and runs for 27 minutes. It looks not just at the genesis and production of the film, but the background to the setting and characterisation, which clarifies the source of the accents that pepper the film and paints a very upbeat picture of a unique-sounding corner of America that actually sounds worth hunting out. Featuring interviews with all the key participants, including the directors and lead actors, this is a fascinating and entertaining extra and will do nicely in lieu of a Coen commentary. It also discusses the film's most controversial aspect, the claim that it was based on a true story – it wasn't, and appears more the result of a cornucopia of stories that have been passed on to the Brothers, which they then fashioned into a single narrative.

The Trivia Track, when activated, is a graphical version of Cliff from Cheers, throwing little known facts at us with impressive regularity, some directly related to the film, such as background information on actors, many sparked by words spoken in the dialogue or places in which a scene is set or filmed. This is a consistently interesting track, with some unexpected information – the fat and calorie content of a McDonald's Vanilla shake, plus some useful advice on what to do if you or someone you know is kidnapped – even if a small number of the submissions feel a bit like space filling, such as dictionary definitions of 'Ransom', 'Kidnapping' and 'Disparity'. It's still a fun and informative extra, and once started it's difficult to just leave this track and come back later – you tend to want to stay with it.

An Interview with the Coen Brothers and Frances McDormand, recorded for the Charlie Rose Show in the US, runs for 20 mins and is a busy extra – the Brothers and McDormand are very talkative and forthcoming, and are generally well fed by Rose, though he does trip up once, asking McDormand if she was a fan of the Coens' work before she married one of them, only to have her point out that since they met on their and her first film, they didn't have a body of work at that time. It's always great to see the Coens interviewed – it's a rare enough thing – and this is a useful extra.

My yearning for information on the lighting and camerawork in the film was pretty much satiated by the text-based article reproduced from the American Cinematographer magazine, probably the essential trade journal for working and budding cinematographers. This is a long article that goes into considerable detail on the lighting and camerawork on the film, with contributions from Deakins and the Coens. All the talk of camera, stock and lens choices may be lost on those not in the know (and there is a fair amount of film-making jargon here, with no explanatory glossary for the uninitiated – see right hand panel beneath the disk specs for some help), but for film-makers and those interested in the technical aspects of the process, this is a very useful addition. There are also some on-set photos and some of Deakins' own lighting plans included.

The behind-the-scenes photos are interesting, just to see the cast and crew in a more relaxed mode, but the section continues the infuriating DVD habit of presenting such pictures in a small frame in the middle of the screen, here surrounded by a snowy border, which though in-keeping with the presentation of the disk, wastes a huge amount of screen space that could have been more usefully employed on the photos themselves. There are quite a lot of pictures, though, and you can advance manually or let them tick through on automatic.

The Coen Brothers' Family tree is just that – a tree, bearing the names of key actors they have worked with. You can select any of the names and get a listing of the films they have done for the Coens, and from there can select the principal cast list from individual films. This is fine, but a little more detail would have been nice. Listing Sam Raimi, an old friend and co-script collaborator of the Coen Bothers, just as a bit part player in two of their films seems to be missing the most interesting information.

Finally there are 2 Trailers and a TV spot. Trailer 1 runs for 2 minutes, has an anamorphic 1.85:1 picture and is frankly a peculiar beast, with largely upbeat music not heard in the film and an almost Disney-esque voice-over, it really gives very little idea of the film's tone. Trailer 2 is a similar length and identical aspect ratio and this time has a cocktail lounge piano track and no voice-over, but at least the chosen extracts give a better feel for the film's eccentric edge, and we do get a snatch of the main theme mid way. This same tinkly background music sits behind the 4:3 TV spot, which at just 30 seconds does a better job of getting you interested by showing you less, but the clips are well selected. All three trailers are in reasonably good shape.

Fargo remains probably the Coen Brothers' most acclaimed movie, and certainly it is up there with their best. On my own I tend to run The Big Lebowski more often, and if I have friends visiting I plump for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, but that shouldn't detract in any way from what I still regard as a genuinely great American movie. This is a fine disk, with the sort of picture and sound quality the film deserves, plus enough decent extras to fully justify that Special Edition status. Highly recommended.