Directed by
Joel Coen
Written by
Robert Ramsey &
Matthew Stone and
Ethan Coen &
Joel Coen
Starring
George Clooney,
Catherine Zeta-Jones
This movie is a favorite among favorites (and it's in
The Pantheon, of course). Along with
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, this is my favorite cat-and-mouse movie.
The
acting is, across the board, wonderful. Of course George Clooney and
Catherine Zeta-Jones are good, but this movie wouldn't be what it is
without
Geoffrey Rush ("I'm in a meeting!"),
Billy Bob Thornton ("Honey, do I look worried?"),
Cedric the Entertainer ("You want tact? Call a tactician."),
Paul Adelstein ("Baby field greens"),
Richard Jenkins ("
Your Honor, this is harassment, and, frankly, it's still a little arty-farty."), Edward Herrmann ("Is that possible?") and so many others.
And
they obviously wouldn't be so good if it weren't for the writing. The
universe of this movie is so filled with lying that it's easy not to
notice how often it happens. When George Clooney unknowingly repeats the
lie that someone (no spoiler here) has died in a business meeting when
we clearly know otherwise, it's just a reminder that they are all filled
with, as Big Daddy would say, mendacity.
The
Coen brothers really outdid themselves with this movie. The pacing is
great, look is great, and even the little touches are great -- things
like "Living without Intestines" magazine. That's part of the reason why this movie holds up so well after repeated viewings, and I speak from experience.
A
lot of reviews compared this movie to screwball comedies, but, while
their influence is evident, it's a product of now. It's just as much fun
watching George Clooney go through trouble as our modern Cary Grant, but those movies (The Awful Truth,
for example) are about a world that isn't greedy the way this one is.
That some of the main action happens at a divorce lawyers' convention in
Las Vegas, versus swanky and relatively innocent apartments and
nightclubs in '30's New York is telling enough. So much of this movie is
about cupidity versus Cupid that the Coen brothers may have left out
that pun as a sign that it was too obvious.
Intolerable Cruelty at IMDB.
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