| Home | Movies A-M | Movies N-Z | News |
Poster (c) Universal Studios
Every Coen brothers movie is original, no one can disagree with that. However, even the Coens themselves can’t keep away from one major cliché in lawyer movies: all lawyers are either successful, lying scumbags or new, honorable attorneys. Miles Massey is the former. He (George Clooney) is the fastest talking divorce lawyer in town; he can win any case. Not truthfully, but he’ll win it anyway. His biggest challenge is for Rex Rexworth (Edward Herrmann). He was caught cheating on his wife Marilyn (Catherine Zeta-Jones) on tape, and yet he still wants a settlement. Things get complicated, however, when Miles falls for Marilyn.
What seems like a typical romantic comedy isn’t. Sure, it’s a set of star cross’d lovers, but that’s about all of the basics that have been done before. The Coens take something that could have been something basic and unoriginal, but they’re the Coens, and they can’t do something like that. However, that’s what the movie tries to be: too commercial. It doesn’t have as much as the typical Coen quirkiness, because producer Brian Grazer is a big Hollywood type and can’t bear to leave out a demographic. Instead of having it be some sort of Lost in Translation type love story (well, just that it would be different), the romance is pretty tepid. Nothing new there.
On the other hand, at times Intolerable Cruelty was almost inspired lunacy. If not lunacy, at least inspired. The court scene is priceless when some miscellaneous German comes in and another lawyer keeps on objecting for no apparent reason. One of the final scenes is also great. I won’t give much away, except that it involves an asthmatic hit man. It’s not constantly hilarious, but it’s often funny.
It has some sort of fluffy, almost fake feel to it that’s almost too lighthearted. There’s not one serious bit in the film until the first climax, where I temporarily hated the Coens. Here was this nice, easygoing comedy and then the obligatory inspiring monologue came about. I hate that easy-way-out in movies. It randomly bashes cynicism for no apparent reason and then after he basically offended everyone, what did the audience do? They applauded. Now that’s clichéd. Thankfully, that doesn’t last long, as soon the best part comes along, when Intolerable Cruelty does a complete 180 and goes into noir-land. It’s extremely enjoyable to see that and it hosts some of the funniest moments.
Clooney and Zeta-Jones have great chemistry together, and that basically holds the movie together. Without it, all it would basically be is Geoffrey Rush singing Simon and Garfunkel off-key (although it would still be funny) and some weird old person at a law firm who yells at Miles any chance he gets. It’s not a heart-stopping hilarious ride, nor is it a ground breaker, but Intolerable Cruelty certainly is different and it certainly does its best.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language and brief violence.
Review Date: November 8, 2003