The Coens do an efficient job of stamping their signature grotesquerie on sumptuous Beverly Hills and Las Vegas settings and ladling on gallows humor and malice, sometimes with the verve of early Robert Zemeckis. The film is a mess at the end of the day, but for what it is, it charms thoroughly throughout its course, thanks to lively performances on and off the screen that make a fun, if somewhat flat fluff piece. Listen, I don’t expect to be warmly embraced by the National Review, but there are certain rules of journalism that I think we all should be bound by. The materials are available in "Intolerable Cruelty" to create a movie with an irresistible comic payload, so why must they skew it into a warning against itself? Its got a wonderful supporting cast: Cedric the Entertainer, Edward Hermann, and especially Julia Duffy-perfectly cast. Miles is moved with the profound admiration only one slickster can have for another; when Marylin actually inspires Howard to eat the uncrackable Massey Pre-Nup (with barbecue sauce), Miles realizes he is witnessing not just beauty and genius, but a will to challenge his own. The puppet is sincere, but the puppetmaster is wagging his eyebrows at the audience and asking, can you believe this stuff? Imagine Entertainment, Rarely has strife between the sexes been so ruthless, so civilized, and so funny. A bad Coen brothers film is still a good film nonetheless. Undeniably the funniest and most romantically funny comedy of the year. Why won't they give us the payoff their setup demands? God knows matrimonial attorneys deserve this treatment. When Massey's representation of her husband in court denies her any divorce compensation, Marylin vows to get revenge, enlisting the help of an oil baron (Billy Bob Thornton), and the two vie for the advantage in a flirtatious duel of wits. He's fascinated by the brilliance with which she violates conventional morality. |, November 7, 2007 |, June 2, 2020 In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Intolerable Cruelty: Official Clip - The Ass Nailer. Mostly, it's a Coen brothers movie so slick, so careful in rationing its darkly perverse and personal elements, that it seems suspiciously sweet. Miles, who is already gob-smacked with Marylin's bewitching sex appeal, can't understand why she wants to marry a yahoo like Howard. Intolerable Cruelty (2003) Parents Guide Add to guide . Even the Coens got to make some money, my friends, but hey, if they're going to, they may as well make a decent film along the way... or get Catherine Zeta-Jones to wear a bunch of shirts and blouses that don't have necks. Intolerable Cruelty - Dragostea costă!. Don't have an account? We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your email. Film. Yeah, just in case "The Man Who Wasn't There" was a little too surprisingly serious for you Coen brothers fans out there, Joel and Ethan decided to go all-out with a palette cleanser and follow that with an all-out romantic-comedy, of all things. Well, sure enough, the Coens succeed in making some pretty fun fluff, in spite of some slow spells. Some must be disappointed to find the Coens conforming to Hollywood conventions, and I'd imagine every one of those people neglected to check the gross revenues of this rom-com and the gritty period noir "The Man Who Wasn't There" and see which one made a little over $101,000,000 more. Movies just don't get better. We enjoy many turns of the screw in this movie, but there comes a time when the screw is seated and they keep turning until they strip the groove. The story/script are good, the acting was good (even by Clooney), CZJ was excellent (don't know why she isn't feature in more movies), and the filmaking was good. Somehow I don't think of them when I consider that ethereal quality known as talent. Clooney as divorce attorney Miles Massey is flawless, as is Catherine Zeta-Jones as conniving goldigger Marilyn Rexroth. Great classic Coen Brothers comedy and George Clooney excells in the role as an over ambitious lawyer. Intolerable Cruelty, while tolerable, isn't very radical--or very good, either. |, November 8, 2019 2.5/5 - Fair. |, May 6, 2008 'Intolerable Cruelty' isn't Joel and Ethan at the top of their game and is incredibly uneven, but it's still fairly middle-of-the-road entertainment. The camera just stands there and gawks at Catherine Zeta-Jones, and so does George Clooney, and so do we. The camera just stands there and gawks at Catherine Zeta-Jones, and so does George Clooney, and so do we. Great value price for £4.99 for this digital download. Style is limited, but it stands, and the Coens make sure that you don't forget that, because even though their direction is a little flimsy, as well as particularly under-inspired to begin with, they keep momentum generally smooth, with an energetic sense of color that is even sharper in the Coens' less unevenly structured writing. The plot is utterly improbable in more than a few ways, and I reckon that's intentional, yet moments in which the Coens go well beyond the top make it more difficult to deny the cheesiness of this hopelessly mainstream dark comedy that would be worth embracing if it wasn't also derivative. | Rotten (46). But does she want to marry a millionaire, or simply become one herself? The combatants are attorney Miles Massey (George Clooney) and fortune-hunter Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Miles and Marylin acknowledge their mutual chicanery. The percentage of Approved Tomatometer Critics who have given this movie a positive review. Here's an anomaly: a comedy about smart people. They've hit their formulaic occasions, but the Coens, more than that, have surprised, if not innovated time and again with storytelling, yet here, the only surprise is that there's hardly anything new to this lazily mainstream narrative, as if the Coens ultimately chose to give up on fleshing out this story concept as a film of greater quality. We want him to win her. We meet him in divorce court, representing an outraged husband (Geoffrey Rush) who surprised his wife with the pool man and found that odd, since they didn't have a pool. The soundtrack for the Coen Brothers' romantic comedy Intolerable Cruelty features a witty array of pop songs and excerpts from Carter Burwell's equally witty score. Edit. If you missed this excellent film at theaters years ago, watch it now. The Coens wrote the script eight years ago on assignment, not intending to direct it, and that may explain why the result often lacks their customary bizarro facetiousness. All Critics (186) |, February 9, 2006 |, January 15, 2004 Sidney Poitier’s 7 Most Memorable Performances, All Harry Potter Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy It's not a long list. Review: Intolerable Cruelty. All rights reserved. Review: Let Him Go Is a Hammy Melodrama That’s Parched for Backstory. Commentary on not just the culture of the uber-rich lifestyle that is Beverly Hills, but also on our national obsession with money in particular, that fat baby: greed ("if I don't get more right now of whatever it is I want I'm gonna cry very loudly!"). With that said, Joel and Ethan Coen get to be mighty messy even with their scripting, but if there is any kind of razor-sharp wit to this overly mainstream affair, it is found within the Coens' snappy, if a little busy dialogue and audaciously, if not shamelessly over-the-top comic set pieces. There plenty of fun notes to the Coens' script, and they do justice to a certain fun factor to subject matter that, no matter how improbable, formulaic and altogether near-cloyingly mainstream, has plenty of fluffy value that is kept adequately lively by highlights in the Coens' storytelling, but truly anchored by a cast that is perhaps more respectable than it ought to be for a film of its time. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 April 2017. Coming Soon. The Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right Now. Liam Lacey. Stereotypes are skewered, and deception and hustling run rampant. I promise you'll love it. She goes on the list with Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr. But he meets his match when he runs into a woman (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who makes a sport out of marrying men and divorcing them, in order to cash in on large divorce settlements. Screwball comedy. Its almost as entertaining as the Coens' "O Brother Where Art Thou," which also stars George Clooney. Rated PG-13 Cinemark Film. The Coen Brothers named O Brother Where Art Thou after a film title in Sullivan's Travels, but Intolerable Cruelty plays more like a Preston Sturges romantic film with quick pacing, plot twists and dialogue filled with double entendres (The Massey pre-nup cannot be penetrated). Sinoposis Intolerable Cruelty: Dragostea costa este o comedie romantica avand in prim plan un barbat care castiga la curte (de justitie) | Rating: 4/5 Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. The problem with Intolerable Cruelty is that it gets caught halfway in between being a regular studio movie and a Coen Brothers movie. Notes on Intolerable Cruelty (2003) • If Intolerable Cruelty doesn’t quite feel like a Coen brothers movie, that’s because in some respects it isn’t. By the end of that movie, everyone knows all about each other, and they accept the situation; if we cannot have what we want, they agree, let us at least be able to admire the way we behaved. It's not a long list. Intolerable Cruelty By NR Staff. The humor (which pokes fun at the wealthy Beverly Hills community) is sharp and full of wit, and there are several laugh-out-loud moments, but the real comedy comes from the performances, which are zany and charismatic and reminiscent of the screwball comedies of the 30s and the 40s. Regal The Coens sometimes have a way of standing to one side of their work: It's the puppet and they're the ventriloquists. Of course, there are indeed traits in this film that are reasonably worth remembering, as they craft a generally fun affair that even comes with a hint of artistic integrity. Clooney plays Miles Massey, the millionaire author of the Massey Pre-Nup, a prenuptial agreement so tightly written that it has, we learn, never been cracked. |, January 5, 2018 The Best Sci-Fi Movies on Netflix Right Now. Yet it's here, witty dialogue delivered with verve. The film is told from Massey's point of view. | Rating: 3/5 Miles wins the case, so it's curious that Marylin wants to hire him to draft a Massey Pre-Nup for her next marriage, which will be to a gulping, blushing Texas oil billionaire named Howard (Billy Bob Thornton in full display). The Coens recruit recurring collaborators Carter Burwell and Roger Deakins, who have delivered time and again on unique and inspired score work and cinematography, and are, of course, held back from really fleshing out their artistic vision for this film, which still has highlights in which Burwell delivers on colorful, classically-charged scoring, while Deakins delivers on clean, sometimes memorably distinguished cinematography. Read full review Neither one is very nice. Though more mainstream than other Coen films, there are still funny oddball touches, and Clooney and Zeta-Jones sizzle like old-time movie stars. |, December 30, 2006 The question is, does she want him? This is the Coens dabbling in the mainstream, and bending it to their will. That said: The movie has many scenes of delicious comedy, Cloo-ney and Zeta-Jones play their characters perfectly in an imperfect screenplay, and the man with the asthma puffer gets the biggest single laugh since the hair gel in "There's Something About Mary.". and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Their "Fargo" was a movie that loved its characters, and it's one of the best movies I've ever seen. MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language and brief violence: Certification: She has the kind of beauty that could melt a divorce lawyer's heart and soften his brain, which is what happens in "Intolerable Cruelty," the new comedy by the Coen Brothers. Your AMC Ticket Confirmation# can be found in your order confirmation email. Intolerable Cruelty has no vibe, and if it did, it wouldn't be a shaggy one: this is a comedy based in the precision of two tactical geniuses trying to outflank the other, modeled after a breed of comedies that are noteworthy in large part for how airtight and well-designed they are. Movie Review. Copyright © Fandango. We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your account. Clooney and Zeta-Jones are both great-looking people, both smart, both able to play comedy, both able to handle the kind of dialogue fondly described in our nation's literate past as witty repartee. Sign up here. You want tact you call a tactician. When the suffering is finished, slow spells find themselves broken up by obnoxiously frantic points which join thin characterization, improbability and genericism in reflecting a fluffy thinness that renders the final product, underwhelming, if not forgettable, in spite of the striking scoring and cinematographic highlights, lively direction, colorful writing, and thoroughly charismatic cast - from which George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones stand out, partly with their effective chemistry - that make "Intolerable Cruelty" a generally fun hyper-mainstream, if under-inspired Coen brothers endeavor. Cinemark Maybe Miles and Marylin need to be a little more nasty, a trifle more cutthroat in their demeanor to bring it all to life. A competent bit of work from which striking originality and idiosyncrasy have mostly been pruned away. CZJ is as funny as she is beautiful, definitely underrated as an actress. By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie. |, September 24, 2007 Distributie George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones. The Coen Brothers named O Brother Where Art Thou after a film title in Sullivan's Travels, but Intolerable Cruelty plays more like a Preston Sturges romantic film with quick pacing, plot twists and dialogue filled with double entendres (The Massey pre-nup cannot be penetrated). Reviews Intolerable Cruelty | Review. Intolerable Cruelty feels like the Coens' peculiar new way of being cynical, by pretending they're not. You know that it was Coens' name that made a cast this solid come calling, but now that it's here, each member, despite being unevenly used, charms, whether it be Billy Bob Thornton as the charismatic and fast-talking southwestern man of business, or Edward Herrmann as an awkwardly anxious man who cannot afford a divorce, or Cedric the Entertainer as a delightfully smooth and proud private investigator, or Paul Adelstein as the near-adorable right-hand to George Clooney's hardened role. Most Hollywood comedies these days are so painfully unfunny that Intolerable Cruelty comes as a breath of fresh air. Intolerable Cruelty is a solid romantic screwball comedy and 100 enjoyable mins of light entertainment. You have *no* *idea*. Verified Purchase. | Top Critics (54) Movie Reviews By Reviewer Type. and the Terms and Policies, Unchallenged, he wearies of his life -- until he meets the cunning Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones). 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