Intolerable Cruelty
Cast
George Clooney .... Miles Massey
Catherine Zeta-Jones .... Marylin Rexroth
Geoffrey Rush .... Donovan Donaly
Cedric the Entertainer .... Gus Petch
Edward Herrmann .... Rex Rexroth
Directed by
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Rater #2 has description and review.
Rater #1
Has Not Seen Movie
Rater #2
7/10. The title Intolerable Cruelty is a sitting duck waiting to be mocked.
Everyone who doesn't enjoy it for some reason or another can say that
the movie itself is intolerable cruelty, and it is cruelty to sit
through this intolerable movie. I may not be the world's largest Coen
brothers fan (now I've seen a total of four), but I think it's
impossible to hate this fluffy, almost wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am-ish
film. It's a pleasant time-diverter, nothing more.
Every Coen brothers movie is original, no one can disagree with that.
However, even the Coens themselves can't keep away from one major
clich� 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
clich�d. 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.
Running time: 100 minutes
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