Ulysses, a mild but disillusioned police officer, arrives in icy Minnesota to start an eight-week stint as substitute sheriff in the surprisingly prosperous small town of Normal. The previous sheriff has died in mysterious circumstances.

As he recovers from a traumatic episode in his own career, his aim is to serve out his time as quietly and uneventfully as possible and then leave the town pretty much as he found it. Unsurprisingly, events swiftly take a very different, not to mention ultra-violent, turn.

The snowbound setting, quirky but amiable inhabitants and swift intimations of a darker criminal hinterland all give off unmistakable Fargo vibes. Not least because the sheriff is played by Bob Odenkirk, an alumnus of Noah Hawley’s TV spin-off of the Coen Brothers’ classic 1996 picture. (In an obvious nod, Ulysses’ deceased predecessor, Gunderson, shares his surname with Frances McDormand’s cop in the film.)

The silent apparitions of the town’s near-legendary moose and much discussion of coffee also lend these sequences a certain Twin Peaks (1990-1991) flavour. Later on a severed ear is an obvious shout-out to another David Lynch project, Blue Velvet (1986).

Midway through director Ben Wheatley’s new........

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