Tuesday 17 January 2012

Intolerable Cruelty

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Year:2003
Country of origin:USA
Director:Joel Coen
Genre:Woeful Rom-Com
Starring:George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones
Rating:2/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138524/
Tagline:A romantic comedy with bite.
Favourite line:None worth mentioning

The Coen brothers attempt at a Rom-Com, and what a disaster it is.
I fooookin' love the Coen Brothers' output.
Fargo, Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski.
For me, they can barely do any wrong.
Then I saw this.
Except I didn't.
I switched it off after an hour.
That's right.
After an hour.
And it's only one thirty seven long.
I simply couldn't face the remainder of it. I kept it on well past it's welcome simply because I kept saying to myself, "Heh, this is The Coens', it's bound to come good." Well, maybe it did past the point I hit stop, but not before.

Clooney plays a successful marital lawyer, whose water tight pre-nuptual agreement is the stuff of legend.
Zeta-Jones is a money grabbing tyrant who marries men for money.
They fall in love in a roundabout sort of way.

Yawn yawn fucking yawn.
Listen, I don't usually lower myself to cursing in these reviews, but this antagonised me. You don't care about these people.
You don't give a flying one who is sleeping with whom, or how much money they have. And I think there lies the problem: Where normally the Coens movies deal with crime and general criminality, as well as the human condition in general, the focus of this film is the wealthy and their corrupt ways with regards cash and, frankly, it's as dull as ten day old excrement.
Clearly this was an attempt to hit the big time and, thankfully, it failed dismally at the box office, forcing them to return to their usual style for the Oscar winning No Country For Old Men (which, I must confess, I am yet to see).
This only just misses out on a one rating due to their standard observational dialogue being correct and present some of the time.
If you want Rom-Com, this might please.
If you want stylish, intelligent film-making, which is the Coen's usual canon, best steer clear.

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